


Giver

by casasst



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Dom Draco Malfoy, Dom/sub, Drama, Explicit Sexual Content, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Identity Issues, Implied Relationships, Intense, Light BDSM, Male Slash, Masochism, Multi, Not Epilogue Compliant, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Praise Kink, Psychological Drama, Rape/Non-con Elements, Scratching, Song Inspired, Sub Harry Potter, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-08-28 16:16:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16726716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casasst/pseuds/casasst
Summary: Draco’s not a giver. Harry’s not a taker. So that should work out well, no?I am afraid not. At least not in the beginning.





	1. Verse 1

**Author's Note:**

> This little piece was very much inspired by K.Flay’s song “Giver”. Honestly, I love her reckless, honest lyrics. I started this out, thinking it would simply be a one-shot thing. And maybe it could be. But I prefer to divide it into 7 bites. Because teasing makes the pleasure so much sweeter ;)
> 
> More tags and warnings to come - you have been warned.
> 
> Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

“Make this annoyance stop, _now_!”, Draco yelled, waving his right hand at a pygmy owl that had landed on the table in front of him. His demanding shouts were addressed at Blaise Zabini, loyal friend since childhood, fellow post-war- expatriate, co-owner of their mansion, and therefore, in Draco’s opinion, obliged to take care of his mental well-being.

Draco’s outbursts had become such a routine part of their breakfast that Blaise neither cared nor dared to respond anymore. Ever since they had left Hogwarts and the greatest part of their family’s histories behind, the two had grown closer. Their sharing a manor was a concession to their need for company and sympathy in times where it was not easy to be an ex-Slytherin.

“Blaise Zabini, how _dare_ you ignore the fact that I am continuously being harassed by these unspeakable intrusions!”

“Just take the letter and it will go away.”, Blaise commented dryly.

“No! I won’t let that drivel ruin my morning again.”

Blaise bit his tongue. Draco had for sure ruined _his_ morning, again, but he knew that it was pointless to fuel his rage. Taking note that he was being ignored, Draco leaned back, arms and legs crossed, staring at the small owl with disdain. Under Blaise’s judgmental gaze, he pointed his wand at the bird that was stretching its neck to present its delivery to Draco.

“Draco… please tell me you are just going to send it back.”

“You, my dear friend, should know so much better.”

And a second later, the black owl was replaced with a candlestick of the same color, it’s delivery standing upright in place of a candle. Draco picked it up gingerly.

“Mind you, Blaise, could you at least hand me one of those candles?”

Blaise sighed in resignation and fetched one of the candles from the candelabra in the middle of the table. The letter burned to ashes within a second.

“At least this one did not shout a love poem through the entire house…”, he muttered. “or worse.”

Blaise turned back to his toast while Draco just played with the small morsels of ash that had fallen onto his plate. His friend knew all too well what that meant. There was only one thing that turned Draco’s mood so sour that he neglected his strict dietary regimen.

“That one did not make it long, huh?”

“Argh. It became so _boring_. It was so… stereotyped. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Permission to quote?” Draco snorted in response. “As far as I remember, she was ‘one of the most stimulating intellectual minds encountered in years’ with ‘a bloody gorgeous body that made up for her lack of experience a hundred times’.”

Draco did not look at Blaise as he got up and left the room without further comment. He did not need a reminder that the last woman, attempt number thirty-three, had started out very promising. And Draco had enjoyed the time together for about two weeks. And then the same thing happened that always happened around week two. The other got needy. And Draco could not handle that.

The problem was, he could also not handle being single. Or, at least, with someone to warm his bed and fuck him to sleep. He even had to admit, though with grinding teeth, that he easily fell for someone once she or he sparked his interest. The last woman had been enchantingly witty, a gorgeous sight, maybe a little bit too young but oh, that naïveté had made it so much sweeter to seduce her.

It did not even matter to him whether it was a man or a woman. Draco loved all things beautiful. Love being the problematic word. When he met someone that he wanted, he fell in a state that Blaise classified as ‘fallen in love’. Draco called it different things. He obsessed about that person. He wanted them. He craved their body. For about two weeks. And then it was over, the feelings vanished, and all that Draco could still see besides an attractive façade were flaws and blemish. And the worst flaw of all that they all seemed to develop was that they insisted on ‘moving to another level’, on staying for breakfast, on talking about the past, the present, the future.

A future _together_. It made Draco shudder. No matter how infatuated he became with another person, he never had an intention to continue the Malfoy family line. That nightmare needed to be over. For the first time in his life, he felt free to do what he wanted to do, uncompromised by the demands of a bloodline, because there was nothing left to be proud of as a Malfoy. The family name was tainted with the stain of the Dark Mark in a time where the Dark Lord had been defeated. Time to move on and to forget.

And he did forget when he was engaged with his newest capture. For the first year, he had told himself that it was all a game. A game that demonstrated that he could have whomever he wanted for how long he wanted. That he was in control of the situation. Until Blaise had pointed out for the thirtieth time that he was not. And Draco, then standing amidst the shards of the porcelain that he had just smashed to smithers in a rage, had to admit that the break-ups and make-up attempts of his discarded lovers hit him harder each time the cycle repeated.

~*~

The sound of rain drumming against the windows woke Harry up. He instinctively grabbed the body next to him, a comforter against the nasty weather outside. He buried his nose where the neck and shoulders of the other met, resting his right arm around his waist. The familiar scent of sweat and sex flooded Harry’s nose and promised to take him back to sleep along with the lulling warmth of two bodies underneath one blanket.

Much to his annoyance, the other person did not seem to share his plans to merely serve as a self-heating pillow. Instead, he started to move and wiggle the lower part of his body closer to Harry’s. His arm slowly freed itself from Harry’s firm hug, stroking first his lower arm, then his biceps, then reaching across to touch his glutes. Harry grabbed his hand in half-hearted disapproval, moving it back in front of the other man’s chest. But that was only taken as an opportunity to guide Harry’s hand from there to deeper regions. With timid force, Harry’s hand was guided across an incipient erection, across the testicles beneath it, up again, suggesting a gentle rhythm that let the other’s arousal grow tangibly.

Harry’s initial grumbling turned into a deep purr. If the other did not let him sleep, perhaps the alternative was not so bad after all. He freed his hand from the initial guidance, slowing his movements, letting his fingers play with alternations of pressure, exploring the shape of the other’s penis as he did so, smiling at the noises that he was starting to produce. He inched his own hips forward, moving his groin against the other’s back in the same rhythm that his hand had taken on.

But the other had not yet let go of the situation’s control. With a mixture of sigh and growl, he grabbed Harry’s wrist, pulled himself up on his left elbow, and turned himself around with Harry who now found himself pinned to the bed by one hand and sooner than he could protest by his hips, held firmly in place by one of the other’s legs. He bent up, pretending to struggle once, twice, just to feel the strength of the other holding him down. Helpless in the sweetest way.

It was only then that Harry’s eyes blinked open and caught a glimpse of blonde hair and a smooth chest. Another glimpse passed and he was turned onto his stomach, his just-emerging erection caught between his own body and the sheets. He moaned at the pressure the position created, arching his back a little more as he felt the other holding both of his wrists in a firm grip pinned to his lower back. The friction his movements created let the heat between his legs rise even more.

Then he felt lips on his neck, teeth exploring the possibility of a bite, a tongue offering excuses to the insulted skin. But all of that nibbling and teasing that sent shivers down his spine and up again to the tip of his hairs was just a distraction from what was about to happen to his ass. Harry acknowledged the thoughtfulness with a little moan, signaling to the other that everything was alright, that he could go on. Now.

And soon enough he could feel a finger running across his anus playfully, wet, a little bit too cold. He inched his hips up as much as he could with his arms still held firmly behind his back. The first finger entered him effortlessly, courtesy to the night before, and Harry indulged in that feeling of almost uncompromised pleasure. As the other kept his fingers moving, his mouth kissing, Harry’s mind went blank. He felt his body move, heard his voice moaning but had given up control of either. This was heavenly, sweet oblivion.

He could feel the other’s cock pressing against his thighs. He could hear his subdued groans. He felt the grip around his wrists tightening rhythmically as the other hand was still massaging his butthole. Harry soaked in the other’s desire.

“Do you want me?”, he asked, gasping for air.

“Oh, sweetheart, you know just about how much I want you now.”, the other replied, pressing more firmly against Harry’s ass, not quite forcing himself into him yet.

“Tell me.”, Harry demanded in a halting voice.

“I want you. I fucking want you.”

And with that, he gave Harry that addictive feeling of fullness, of pain-inspired pleasure as he started to fuck him, gently at first, letting go eventually, more with every thrust, spiked by their moans and lust and a hotness that came from deep within.

Minutes later, Harry rolled onto his back, his head buzzing with dizziness, his balls twitching with the aftermath of an orgasm. Deep satisfaction floated through his body. He listened to his breath calming down to normal speed, stretching his arms, almost hitting the person next to him. It only then struck him that he had no clue who that person was.

With a mix of curiosity and shame, he turned on his side to face the other man. He was around Harry’s age, blonde, with the statue of somebody who had grown tall early on in life, retaining thin long limbs and little muscle. He was blonde, the hair on his chest only visible because of the tan that covered almost the entire body but an almost comic shorts silhouette. The face was slightly familiar to Harry, plain and pleasant, beardless and well-cared for, but he could not recall a name.

“Are you alright? You’re staring at me as if I had just transfigured into your mother.”, the other asked, smiling, while he was removing the condom from his penis. “You were pretty out there when I fucked you.”

Harry blushed. “Yeah. Thanks for that. It was really good.”

“Ah-ah. Thank _you_.”

The other was trying to give him a kiss. Harry managed to cut it short by getting up on his elbows. He could not possibly ask for a name now, could he? The last one had not taken that question well. Harry took a look around the room and even though he could not see more than blurry outlines, it was clear that he was in his bedroom. He sighed. No easy way out.

“You want me to leave, don’t you?”, the other asked, a bitter undertone well hidden by perhaps genuine empathy.

Harry searched for his glasses to stall for time. When he had put them on his nose, he forced himself to look at the other man’s face again. With a sharp breath in, Harry confessed to himself that it was the same game all over again. A blonde man in his bed, blue eyes, sharp chin, narrow face. They were all alike, all strangers, all nameless.

“If you don’t mind…”, he managed to squeeze out. “It’s not that I did not enjoy…”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure you did.” The other’s smile wavered between sour and amused. “And it’s ok. We all need that sometimes. To just feel that someone wants us. Even if it’s not the one we really want.”

Harry swallowed hard. “How…”

“You were very specific about what you want to hear in bed.”, the other said while he was already starting to get dressed.

Harry’s cheeks turned from pink to scarlet. “Am… I’m sorry if I made you-“

“Stop being sorry. I had fun. You are fun. Owl me if you’d like to repeat this.”

Harry kept his eyes fixed on the sheets. His right hand playing with the blanket that he had drawn over himself.

“It’s Alex.”, the other added. He reached out to touch Harry’s cheek, hesitating as Harry leaned back an inch. “It was good to meet you, Clay.”

Harry sighed deeply when the front door clicked shut behind Alex. While his body felt great, his inner self felt like garbage. Fake names, forgotten names, strangers in his bed. He was sure that he would find a transfiguration spell cast at least on his forehead, if not his entire face that had hidden his identity.

Is it possible to feel used by oneself, he asked quietly, knowing the answer was yes because that was exactly what he was feeling. Ever since his life had started to resemble a normal wizarding life, he had tried to fill a growing emptiness. With Voldemort defeated and the world at relative ease, there was no need for the hero Harry Potter anymore. The only thing left from the identity that defined him was an annoying media interest in his persona, seeking for scandals and entertainment. But the fact was: nobody needed Harry Potter. The-boy-who-lived had fulfilled his duty and there was nothing meaningful left to do for the man Harry Potter.

He wanted someone to want _him_ , as a person. And the easiest way to feel wanted, the most tangible, exciting, all-consuming way to feel wanted was to spark desire in another. Harry had become an expert in this game. He knew how to lure a man into his bed, as Harry Potter or otherwise. He knew how to dangle the promise of an exciting night in front of their noses. He knew how to fill the emptiness inside him, each night, temporarily. He did not know how to fill it for good.


	2. Pre-Chorus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is a true pre-chorus. Building tension, here, I am almost sorry if that leaves some of you in suspense.

Blaise hid behind the oversized pages of the Daily Prophet when Draco entered the dining room. He raised two fingers in acknowledgment of Draco’s presence but did not make a sound. A cup of tea was floating next to his right hand, ready to be picked up at his leisure. Sunday mornings were sacred to the Zabini family and Blaise honored this tradition by enjoying the time he now did _not_ spend at church in silence with a pile of newspapers and a never-ending supply of Earl Grey.

Draco murmured an indistinct good morning and sat across the table. The house elves had outdone themselves again preparing a lavish Sunday breakfast. But the layers of pumpkin pancakes, fruit, toast, eggs, sausages, and waffles did not interest Draco, not even the golden croissants sparked an idea of appetite. Draco scoffed at the display of celebrating the worst day of the week. He hated Sunday mornings. Instead of deliberating more over unappetizing food, he reached for a bottle of mulberry wine that had been either left over from dinner or placed there by a very perceptive elf that could read Draco’s depressed morning mind. Blaise was too immersed in his newspapers to judge him now, anyway.

That drinking before noon was not a good sign did not escape Draco’s attention and it bothered him. Yet, it was an easy way out, it cheered him up for an hour or so, it numbed the feeling of loneliness that held him in an icy grip this morning. That was the true reason why he hated Sunday mornings so much – Blaise’s absent-mindedness reminded him that he had nothing and nobody besides this one friend. Sunday mornings were only bearable if he had something pretty in his bed that kept him distracted until Blaise had the grace to resume human interaction.

He made a mental note to never break up with someone on a Saturday evening again. But he had not had a choice. Francis had started to get all romantic with roses and champagne, and if that would not have been painful enough, the night culminated in the most cliché, most dreaded three-word-sentence. Until that, Draco had willingly endured all rituals of stereotyped courtship for a decent blowjob and a good fuck. But the L-word was a deal breaker.

He took a generous sip of wine, forcing his thoughts into a more productive direction. Mourning failure, even just dwelling on it, was not like him. There needed to be a solution for his situation and there needed to be a logical way of finding it. It was like brewing a potion. He just needed to clarify the demands, determine the elements that were suitable for meeting those demands, and find a way to combine them without destroying any one’s effect.

“What do I want”, he muttered into his glass, taking one tiny sip at a time as he was contemplating each point. He wanted some reliable company who was not a platonic friend. Someone who did not demand emotional support or displays of affection, let alone public ones. Someone who satisfied him in bed and was not boring to be around elsewhere. Someone who did not need to be treated with kid gloves. Someone who did not want kids. Someone who was just as annoyed with forced, rigid, in-marriage-ending relationship structures. In short, he wanted someone who did not fall in love, whom he did not fall in love with either, but who would nonetheless fill the gap of a lover. Without needing to exchange them every couple of weeks because all the searching and dating was way too tiresome.

“There must be a way…”

All of it did not sound so very logical to Draco anymore. But these were his needs. No strings, no responsibility, no long-term plans, no broken hearts, no _neediness_. Yet, a stable partner, a valid connection, a sense of stability. He knew that he had entangled himself in paradoxes.

Draco started to get bored and frustrated with his inner monologue. He took a deep sigh and he resorted to the next best distraction; Sometimes, Blaise held the front pages at just the right angle for him to read. Even though he despised the Daily Prophet, he was willing to engage with its sensational stories to sidetrack his thoughts for a few moments. His eyes quickly scanned the politics section on page one, carried on to study the current Quidditch league standings, did not find anything worth resting on. Then, a small headline referring to the celebrities section caught his attention.

_Defeater of the Dark Lord – Defeated by Love?  
The most sought-after bachelor in the wizarding world pledges to stay single for a lifetime._

“Blaise?”

Instead of answering, Blaise reached for his cup, his grin well-hidden behind the Daily Prophet.

“Blaise? I know you transformed into a monk who took a vow of silence, repenting the sin of defecting the church, but can you at least acknowledge my existence?”

Blaise let another few seconds pass until he could not withstand the temptation to look at Draco’s worked up face anymore. He flipped the top half of the newspaper down, giving Draco the most innocent look he could muster.

“Any chance you could spare the culture and celebrities section?”

Since Blaise really did not want to talk or let himself get distracted by Draco anymore, he folded up the pages Draco had referred to and passed them over. For the first time this year, he felt very close to breaking his dominical pre-lunch silence. Draco never read anything but the sports and business sections of any newspaper – and he abhorred the Daily Prophet.

Grateful for the other’s self-imposed incapacity to comment, Draco snatched the papers from his hands and started looking for the article that had spiked his interest. The headline was followed by a picture of a head to navel portrait of Harry Potter, rolling his eyes at the photographer – and was that the beginning of an obscene gesture? Draco was already amused.

 

_Defeater of the Dark Lord – Defeated by Love?  
The most sought-after bachelor in the wizarding world pledges to stay single for a lifetime._

_Two years after denying his engagement with Virginia Weasley, sister of Ronald Weasley, one of Harry Potter’s most intimate friends and daughter to the Weasley family who ‘always treated Harry like he was one of [their] own’, the boy-who-lived and man-who-defeated-the-Dark-Lord finally agreed on an interview with myself, Rita Skeeter, expert journalist and specialist for love relationships._

_Even though Mr. Potter does not wish for the entire interview to be published, I can now finally report on why the most eligible bachelor in the wizarding world has repeatedly denied stable bonds with any witch or wizard. The traumatized young man does not feel that he is currently in any position to accept another emotionally important person into his life. According to his neighbor’s, the young man prefers to stay at home, apart from his work at the ministry. His colleagues, who describe Mr. Potter as friendly but distanced, stated that the young man in his best years had not pursued the option of another stable relationship in years. Understandably so, his ex-fiancée commented, since the traumatized man could not stand the idea of losing another beloved. Mr. Potter states that there will be no Mrs. or second Mr. Potter, not only for the time being but “not until they find a way to marry me off in my grave”._

_According to a close friend who wishes to remain anonymous, his emotional trauma has, however, not stopped the dark-haired, green-eyed, and much sought-after Mr. Potter from making better acquaintance with both the fairer sex and his own. Confronted with these reports, Mr. Potter did not wish to comment but his flushed cheeks did give away everything to the perceptive interviewer. Perhaps one of his recent conquests will be the lucky one, after all? As extensive research amongst Mr. Potter’s night-time acquaintances could not confirm any advances along these lines, we directed the question at Mr. Potter himself. Based on Mr. Potter’s responses, the answer is clear: The man who fought and won against the darkest powers in the wizarding world might now be struck down by a power that even he cannot control – unrequited love._

_We will follow up on this issue with exclusive reports from Mr. Potter’s latest love affairs._

 

Draco re-folded the paper, putting it down with a portentous smile. These were, for once, interesting and useful news. Even though he did not give one Knut on Skeeter’s interpretation of an actual or made-up rose tint on Potter’s cheeks, the core of the story struck him as a potential solution for his dilemma. Lost in his thoughts, Draco did not notice that Blaise reclaimed his newspaper, reading the same passage that had transported his friend into the world of daydreams.

After he finished, he threw a puzzled glance at Draco. The other had a broad grin on his face. Was he just relishing Potter’s public humiliation? The article was far too benevolent to even call it that. Was he just amused? That would not generate such an extreme display of content. What had lifted Draco’s spirits from such an obvious post-breakup gloom? And then, Blaise understood.

“I will only say this once, right now: This is a bad, bad, bad idea Draco.” The blonde did not even raise one eyebrow at Blaise’s breach of his sacred Sunday tradition. “Draco?!”

“Oh, I think this is an _excellent_ idea.”

 

~*~

 

“Don’t. Judge. Me.”

Harry was desperately struggling to escape Hermione’s patented I-know-what-you-have-been-up-to-and-I-do-not-approve look. He was sitting at the dinner table with her, Ron, and Teddy. Everybody adored the son of Remus and Tonks, everybody felt a little responsible for his upbringing. So whenever Teddy visited his godfather, there was no question that at least one of the old Hogwarts friends was invited, too.

“I am not judging.”, Hermione countered. “I have only been looking at you.”

“Your looks say more than a thousand words.”

“Which is preferable given that there’s a _child_ at the table.”, she hissed with a nod towards Teddy. The five-year-old looked up from his plate, eager for attention.

“Ah, c’mon, it’s not that we’d need to censor everything we say just because Teddy’s here.”, Ron said.

“Well, there are at least certain things _I_ will not say in his presence.”, Hermione snapped back.

“What does ‘Mione not say?”, asked Teddy curiously. Much like his parents, the young boy had a taste for the hidden, forbidden, and tabooed which was sometimes a dangerous trait at Grimmauld Place 12.

“Your auntie does not want to talk about the visitor we had yesterday, Teddy. She did not like him.”, answered Harry patiently, bending the truth just enough to make it reasonably child-friendly.

“I don’t have a problem with that particular person, Harry, you know that. In fact, how could I, given I have never met him? Or the one before? Or anyone, really, that I just keep hearing about?”

“So, what is your problem, exactly?”, Harry replied.

Hermione gasped for air. Harry was grateful that Ron interrupted her before she could explode into a lecture.

“She really doesn’t mean to be rude, mate. It’s just… you don’t seem happy with how things are going. And you know how Hermione gets when she’s worried about you.”

“Why are you not happy Harry?”, Teddy asked. His child-voice had turned sad.

Harry smiled at him as genuinely as he could. And that was not hard when he looked at his godson.

“I am very, very happy when you are here, Teddy.” Lying to his godson was not an option for Harry. “Just when you are not here, and Hermione and Ron are also not here, I get a little sad.”

“Why?” That was Teddy’s favorite question.

“Because then it’s just me here. And sometimes, that makes me feel a little lonely.”

Teddy looked at him with honest concern, an expression that was almost too serious for a child his age. He reached out with one small hand, trying to pat Harry’s shoulder but could only reach his arm.

“Don’t be sad, uncle Harry. We will just stay here forever! Then you’ll never have to be sad again!”, Teddy declared cheerfully.

Harry chuckled and Ron joined him for a moment. Only Hermione remained silent and sincere. She had crossed her arms, casting reproachful glances at Harry and Ron in turns. She did not want to be the killjoy all over again. The boys needed to set this straight. Ron eventually picked up on that and, feeling a marital pressure to calm his wife’s anger, and tried to explain to Teddy why that was not such a great plan. But Teddy had another idea.

“What about your friend? The nice man with the yellow hair? He can stay with you?”

Harry sighed. “No, Teddy. He cannot stay here. He lives somewhere else.”

“Why?”

“Because… that’s what he does.” Teddy was obviously dissatisfied with the answer. “And because I do not want him to, ok, Teddy?”

“But you said you are sad when you are alone.”

The striking logic of a five-year-old was hard to argue with. Harry looked at Hermione for help but she only raised her eyebrows at him. Apparently, she approved of Teddy’s line of inquiry even though she had opposed talking about the topic earlier. Run just shrugged his shoulders. Five years and a marriage later, he was still as incompetent at dealing with relationship issues as a teenager.

“Well, Teddy, most adults do not want to live with everyone. Just like you do not like to stay with Ginny alone because she hugs you so much.” Teddy nodded at that, still skeptic about where his uncle was going. “That is why we are looking for a special person. Like Hermione has Ron as her special person. I would like to live with such a special person, too. But sometimes, it is hard to find that person.”

“The man with the yellow hair was not your special person?”

“No, Teddy, he was not.”

“But you are looking for a special person with yellow hair!”, he exclaimed triumphantly.

Harry blushed. “Why would you think that?”, he asked before he could think.

“Because the other man also had yellow hair. And the man before him, too. And the man who was here when grandma dropped me off when she was feeling funny. And-“

“Teddy, why don’t we go in the kitchen and look for some dessert, hm?”, Hermione interrupted.

She had heard enough of this and did not like where it was headed. Certainly not child-friendly territory. She usually tried not to bribe Teddy with sweets but these were, in her opinion, special circumstances. Teddy squealed approvingly and hopped down from his chair, grabbing the hand Hermione had stretched out for him.

“You owe me.”, she hissed over her shoulder to Harry. And he knew that this meant a long post-bed-time discussion.

Once Teddy had been tucked into his weekend bed in one of the guest rooms that Harry had redecorated for him, the adults took seats in front of the main fireplace. Harry offered drinks which Hermione declined and Ron accepted all too eagerly even though he had needed time to get used to Harry’s selection of Muggle liquor. The men sat on the armchairs facing Hermione, each a generous glass of whiskey in hand. It was clear who was showing nerves about the conversation ahead.

“Harry…”, Hermione started unusually hesitant. “Ron and I are worried about you.”

The corner of Harry’s mouth was twitching. There was an odd comfort in this sentence that he had been hearing with such regularity for twelve years. He did not comment, only gestured for Hermione to continue.

“Have you read the Daily Prophet yet?”, she continued.

“You know I cannot read that bullshit. Too much gossip, too much the-boy-who-lived-and-now-man-who-blah bullshit. After _five_ years. They could just finally get a grip and-“

“Maybe you should start reading it again before Teddy does.”

She handed him a strip of newspaper, dominated by a half-page portrait of himself. He scanned the page, rolling his eyes repeatedly.

“ _That_ is worrying you? Seriously, Hermione, that is all old news. They made a huge thing out of Ginny and me breaking up, and that was… not nice to say the least, especially for her. But this is just a cheap sequel. And you know that I have never been ‘interviewed’.” He paused. “Even though I might have shouted that one sentence at one of the _twenty_ owls Skeeter had sent me with interview _requests_. I knew she was onto something. But if she thinks this is the best ‘scandal’ she can dig up-“

“I’m not worried, ok slightly worried, about this article in particular.”, Hermione interrupted. “But what about the ‘exclusive reports’ Rita Skeeter promises at the end?”

Harry’s eyelid twitched. “Yes, enlighten me with your insights.”

Instead of answering directly, Hermione sighed deeply and stared at the folded hands in her lap for a while. Ron kept very quiet in his seat and nursed his second drink as he was getting visibly more uncomfortable the more directly the conversation touched upon Harry’s sex life. He gulped down another finger width of whiskey.

“I… I guess I am worried about what exactly those interviewees might…”, Hermione blushed. Everything about this was embarrassing her, her lack of words above all. “Hell, I have no clue what you were doing with all these guys and what they might hold against you after you fucked and dumped them.”, she panted out, covering her mouth with her hands quickly as if to stop any further words erupting from it.

Harry blinked once, twice.

“I don’t see any reason why any of them would badmouth me. They come voluntarily, they go voluntarily. We meet, we have sex, we never see each other again. It’s simple. Nothing worth reporting.”, his voice was cold, distant. Ever since the start of their conversation, he had braced himself for these questions and he answered them matter-of-fact-like. That was the only kind of answer he could muster without falling back into the hole of self-pity in which he trapped himself far too often these days.

“Oh, Harry.” Hermione’s voice changed from angry to pitiful. “Ron… don’t you want to say something?”

“No.”, he pressed out between tight lips. His glass was empty. Reviewing Harry’s _gay_ sex life was at the very bottom of his list of conversational topics. He would have disapparated right after dinner if Hermione was not his wife and only Merlin knew what she would have made of their sex life if he had. So he had another drink and endured.

“Look, Hermione.”, Harry tried to resolve the tension. The topic made both him and Ron miserable. Hermione was pushing into a territory she had no right to intrude. “For all the bullshit Skeeter has written in her pathetic life, the one thing is true: I do not want a relationship. But I’m… a man, and I have needs, and I have found a way to arrange things. Ok? I’m doing it safely.”, he added in a hushed voice.

“Harry, I get that you are not feeling good about intense relationships. But what you are doing seems… compulsory. And what is that with all of your… lovers being blonde?”

Harry wished he could laugh at that and wave it off as a meaningless preference. He attempted to, but his cool façade was cracking.

“You _would_ want something more, wouldn’t you, Harry?” Hermione tried quietly, once more.

“Nope.”, he answered with feigned poise but he dug his fingers into his thighs as he did so.

Hermione leaned back, realizing that she had bent forward towards Harry like an oversensitive mother for almost the entire conversation. She could _feel_ that something was bothering Harry but she could not get him to admit it.

She tried though. She tried for the next twenty-or-so minutes to unravel Harry’s feelings, to understand them, change them, manage them. But all she got were sporadic reports about how Harry arranged his one-night-stands, how he made sure that most of them did not even know that he was Harry Potter. It all sounded technical, calculating, weirdly rational, and deprived of any feelings whatsoever. It sounds disturbingly Slytherin. She was about to give up when Ron unexpectedly spoke up.

“Mate, you have attachment ish-issues. ‘S not your fault. ‘S been rough times. Bu’ tha’ doesn’t mean you ain’t lonely, man.”

Hermione’s jaw dropped almost audibly. Apparently, the whiskey that had silently disappeared in Ron’s belly had freed a whole other Ronald Weasley.

“An’ so you’re lookin’ for tha’ one bloke but don’ wanna stick to one. Bu’ you got a _type_. An’ _tha’_ looks like… wait a sec, I had somethin’ there.” Ron scratched the back of his head absent-mindedly. “Aaaanywhooo… doesn’ look like the other blokes did the thing. You, mate, are fuckin’ mish-miserable. Writt’n on ‘ya pretty lil’ face. An’ it won’ go ‘way until you fig-figured it out. Yep, gotta figure out who tha’ myshterioush bloke is an’ get ‘im.”

Harry had collapsed in his chair while Ron had been talking. As slurred as the words had been, an undeniable truth was buried under all that alcohol-induced blur.

“Hermione, I think you should take Ron home.”

Still in a state of shock, Hermione nodded, dumbfounded. There was something in the way Harry’s expression had shifted, a darkness in his gaze that even she did not dare to argue with. As she grabbed Ron, heaving the fully grown man’s arm around her shoulder, muttering a weight-lifting spell, and got them ready to floo back home, she looked at Harry again.

“Harry…”

“It’s not ok, Hermione, but it’s manageable.”, he replied softly. “Maybe, for once, Ron is not dead wrong.”

Whether it was the whiskey speaking, whether it had been the result of Hermione’s unwavering interrogations, whether it was the fact that Teddy was asleep upstairs and he knew that he would spend this night alone, Harry was tired of fighting against the obvious. He felt more than lonely, he felt _empty_. And he knew that changing that would be almost as painful as living with the emptiness.

When Ron and Hermione were gone, he remained glued to his armchair, staring into the flames as they resumed their normal color. He recited the habits that Hermione forced him to articulate that night in his head. They came in the evening and left before the morning. They lost their names as soon as they left the house, if not earlier. They were all men, for about two years he had not tried to get involved with a woman. They were as tall as he could find them. They were predominantly blonde. And if he could help it, their eyes were blue. This was as much as the other’s knew. Which was bad enough.

What they, fortunately, could not even guess were the invisible characteristics that Harry was drawn to. He did not like the nice guys, did not like it when they were caring and soft and all-too-careful with him. That was one of the reasons why he preferred to not be Harry Potter. Gay wizards seemed to have a thing for getting protective with the boy-who-endured-oh-so-much-misery. He did not want that kind of sympathy. He did not want another pseudo-foster-sibling, or worse, daddy.

He wanted them to be possessive, greedy, taking the right to ravish him. It was easier to use them if he felt like they used him, establishing equal rights and equal status. No soft feelings, no attachment. Just skin and tongues and lips, lust and passion and sex. No pity, no favors. Just someone to tell him to get on his knees and be, Harry swallowed, a good little toy.

And when Harry combined all the coldness in appearance and attitude, pictures from his past flared up vividly. He closed his eyes. It was ridiculous. But so was his current situation. How many gay, blonde, somewhat kinky, gay wizards were left in London that he had not spotted yet? How often could he still wake up next to a stranger, not knowing his name, not knowing the name _he_ had given himself hours earlier?

His joints were cracking when he forced himself out of the armchair. Even if he knew exactly whom he wanted for more than one night, and he knew, as much as he did not want to – how could he possibly establish contact? He shook his head and tore his hair. This, he decided, was not a question he could answer that night. He would swallow some sleep potion and start thinking about it tomorrow after Teddy had left. He would come up with a plan then.

He could not believe his luck when an owl arrived the next morning that freed him of this task.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the fun shall commence with Chorus 1, aka Chapter 3. You may look forward to an encounter on the slightly ridiculous side. And, I dare say, a quite intense night.


	3. Pre-Chorus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is a true pre-chorus. Building tension, here, I am almost sorry if that leaves some of you in suspense.

Blaise hid behind the oversized pages of the Daily Prophet when Draco entered the dining room. He raised two fingers in acknowledgment of Draco’s presence but did not make a sound. A cup of tea was floating next to his right hand, ready to be picked up at his leisure. Sunday mornings were sacred to the Zabini family and Blaise honored this tradition by enjoying the time he now did _not_ spend at church in silence with a pile of newspapers and a never ending supply of Earl Grey.

Draco murmured an indistinct good morning and sat across the table. The house elves had outdone themselves again preparing a lavish Sunday breakfast. But the layers of pumpkin pancakes, fruit, toast, eggs, sausages, and waffles did not interest Draco, not even the golden croissants sparked an idea of appetite. Draco scoffed at the display of celebrating the worst day of the week. He hated Sunday mornings. Instead of deliberating more over unappetizing food, he reached for a bottle of mulberry wine that had been either left over from dinner or placed there by a very perceptive elf that could read Draco’s depressed morning mind. Blaise was too immersed in his newspapers to judge him now, anyway.

That drinking before noon was not a good sign did not escape Draco’s attention and it bothered him. Yet, it was an easy way out, it cheered him up for an hour or so, it numbed the feeling of loneliness that held him in an icy grip this morning. That was the true reason why he hated Sunday mornings so much – Blaise’s absent-mindedness reminded him that he had nothing and nobody besides this one friend. Sunday mornings were only bearable if he had something pretty in his bed that kept him distracted until Blaise had the grace to resume human interaction.

He made a mental note to never break up with someone on a Saturday evening again. But he had not had a choice. Francis had started to get all romantic with roses and champagne, and if that would not have been painful enough, the night culminated in the most cliché, most dreaded three-word-sentence. Until that, Draco had willingly endured all rituals of stereotyped courtship for a decent blowjob and a good fuck. But the L-word was a deal breaker.

He took a generous sip of wine, forcing his thoughts into a more productive direction. Mourning failure, even just dwelling on it, was not like him. There needed to be a solution for his situation and there needed to be a logical way of finding it. It was like brewing a potion. He just needed to clarify the demands, determine the elements that were suitable for meeting those demands, and find a way to combine them without destroying any one’s effect.

“What do I want”, he muttered into his glass, taking one tiny sip at a time as he was contemplating each point. He wanted some reliable company who was not a platonic friend. Someone who did not demand emotional support or displays of affection, let alone public ones. Someone who satisfied him in bed and was not boring to be around elsewhere. Someone who did not need to be treated with kid gloves. Someone who did not want kids. Someone who was just as annoyed with forced, rigid, in-marriage-ending relationship structures. In short, he wanted someone who did not fall in love, whom he did not fall in love with either, but who would nonetheless fill the gap of a lover. Without needing to exchange them every couple of weeks because all the searching and dating was way too tiresome.

“There must be a way…”

All of it did not sound so very logical to Draco anymore. But these were his needs. No strings, no responsibility, no long-term plans, no broken hearts, no _neediness_. Yet, a stable partner, a valid connection, a sense of stability. He knew that he had entangled himself in paradoxes.

Draco started to get bored and frustrated with his inner monologue. He took an deep sigh and he resorted to the next best distraction; Sometimes, Blaise held the front pages at just the right angle for him to read. Even though he despised the Daily Prophet, he was willing to engage with its sensational stories to sidetrack his thoughts for a few moments. His eyes quickly scanned the politics section on page one, carried on to study the current Quidditch league standings, did not find anything worth resting on. Then, a small headline referring to the celebrities section caught his attention.

_Defeater of the Dark Lord – Defeated by Love?  
The most sought-after bachelor in the wizarding world pledges to stay single for a lifetime._

“Blaise?”

Instead of answering, Blaise reached for his cup, his grin well-hidden behind the Daily Prophet.

“Blaise? I know you transformed into a monk who took a vow of silence, repenting the sin of defecting the church, but can you at least acknowledge my existence?”

Blaise let another few seconds pass until he could not withstand the temptation to look at Draco’s worked up face anymore. He flipped the top half of the newspaper down, giving Draco the most innocent look he could muster.

“Any chance you could spare the culture and celebrities section?”

Since Blaise really did not want to talk or let himself get distracted by Draco anymore, he folded up the pages Draco had referred to and passed them over. For the first time this year, he felt very close to break his dominical pre-lunch silence. Draco never read anything but the sports and business sections of any newspaper – and he abhorred the Daily Prophet.

Grateful for the other’s self-imposed incapacity to comment, Draco snatched the papers from his hands and started looking for the article that had spiked his interest. The headline was followed by a picture of a head to navel portrait of Harry Potter, rolling his eyes at the photographer – and was that the beginning of an obscene gesture? Draco was already amused.

 

_Defeater of the Dark Lord – Defeated by Love?  
The most sought-after bachelor in the wizarding world pledges to stay single for a lifetime._

_Two years after denying his engagement with Virginia Weasley, sister of Ronald Weasley, one of Harry Potter’s most intimate friends and daughter to the Weasley family who ‘always treated Harry like he was one of [their] own’, the boy-who-lived and man-who-defeated-the-Dark-Lord finally agreed on an interview with myself, Rita Skeeter, expert journalist and specialist for love relationships._

_Even though Mr. Potter does not wish for the entire interview to be published, I can now finally report on why the most eligible bachelor in the wizarding world has repeatedly denied stable bonds with any witch or wizard. The traumatized young man does not feel that he is currently in any position to accept another emotionally important person into his life. According to his neighbor’s, the young man prefers to stay at home, apart from his work at the ministry. His colleagues, who describe Mr. Potter as friendly but distanced, stated that the young man in his best years had not pursued the option of another stable relationship in years. Understandably so, his ex-fiancée commented, since the traumatized man could not stand the idea of losing another beloved. Mr. Potter states that there will be no Mrs. or second Mr. Potter, not only for the time being but “not until they find a way to marry me off in my grave”._

_According to a close friend who wishes to remain anonymous, his emotional trauma has, however, not stopped the dark-haired, green-eyed, and much sought-after Mr. Potter from making better acquaintance with both the fairer sex and his own. Confronted with these reports, Mr. Potter did not wish to comment but his flushed cheeks did give away everything to the perceptive interviewer. Perhaps one of his recent conquests will be the lucky one, after all? As extensive research amongst Mr. Potter’s night-time acquaintances could not confirm any advances along these lines, we directed the question at Mr. Potter himself. Based on Mr. Potter’s responses, the answer is clear: The man who fought and won against the darkest powers in the wizarding world might now be struck down by a power that even he cannot control – unrequited love._

_We will follow up on this issue with exclusive reports from Mr. Potter’s latest love affairs._

 

Draco re-folded the paper, putting it down with a portentous smile. These were, for once, interesting and useful news. Even though he did not give one Knut on Skeeter’s interpretation of an actual or made-up rose tint on Potter’s cheeks, the core of the story struck him as a potential solution for his dilemma. Lost in his thoughts, Draco did not notice that Blaise reclaimed his newspaper, reading the same passage that had transported his friend into the world of daydreams.

After he finished, he threw a puzzled glance at Draco. The other had a broad grin on his face. Was he just relishing Potter’s public humiliation? The article was far too benevolent to even call it that. Was he just amused? That would not generate such an extreme display of content. What had lifted Draco’s spirits from such an obvious post-break up gloom? And then, Blaise understood.

“I will only say this once, right now: This is a bad, bad, bad idea Draco.” The blonde did not even raise one eyebrow at Blaise’s breach of his sacred Sunday tradition. “Draco?!”

“Oh, I think this is an _excellent_ idea.”

~*~

“Don’t. Judge. Me.”

Harry was desperately struggling to escape Hermione’s patented I-know-what-you-have-been-up-to-and-I-do-not-approve look. He was sitting at the dinner table with her, Ron, and Teddy. Everybody adored the son of Remus and Tonks, everybody felt a little responsible for his upbringing. So whenever Teddy visited his godfather, there was no question that at least one of the old Hogwarts friends was invited, too.

“I am not judging.”, Hermione countered. “I have only been looking at you.”

“Your looks say more than a thousand words.”

“Which is preferable given that there’s a _child_ at the table.”, she hissed with a nod towards Teddy. The five-year-old looked up from his plate, eager for attention.

“Ah, c’mon, it’s not that we’d need to censor everything we say just because Teddy’s here.”, Ron said.

“Well, there are at least certain things _I_ will not say in his presence.”, Hermione snapped back.

“What does ‘Mione not say?”, asked Teddy curiously. Much like his parents, the young boy had a taste for the hidden, forbidden, and tabooed which was sometimes a dangerous trait at Grimmauld Place 12.

“Your auntie does not want to talk about the visitor we had yesterday, Teddy. She did not like him.”, answered Harry patiently, bending the truth just enough to make it reasonably child-friendly.

“I don’t have a problem with that particular person, Harry, you know that. In fact, how could I, given I have never met him? Or the one before? Or anyone, really, that I just keep hearing about?”

“So, what is your problem, exactly?”, Harry replied.

Hermione gasped for air. Harry was grateful that Ron interrupted her before she could explode into a lecture.

“She really doesn’t mean to be rude, mate. It’s just… you don’t seem happy with how things are going. And you know how Hermione gets when she’s worried about you.”

“Why are you not happy Harry?”, Teddy asked. His child-voice had turned sad.

Harry smiled at him as genuinely as he could. And that was not hard when he looked at his godson.

“I am very, very happy when you are here, Teddy.” Lying to his godson was not an option for Harry. “Just when you are not here, and Hermione and Ron are also not here, I get a little sad.”

“Why?” That was Teddy’s favorite question.

“Because then it’s just me here. And sometimes, that makes me feel a little lonely.”

Teddy looked at him with honest concern, an expression that was almost too serious for a child his age. He reached out with one small hand, trying to pat Harry’s shoulder but could only reach his arm.

“Don’t be sad, uncle Harry. We will just stay here forever! Then you’ll never have to be sad again!”, Teddy declared cheerfully.

Harry chuckled and Ron joined him for a moment. Only Hermione remained silent and sincere. She had crossed her arms, casting reproachful glances at Harry and Ron in turns. She did not want to be the killjoy all over again. The boys needed to set this straight. Ron eventually picked up on that and, feeling a marital pressure to calm his wife’s anger, and tried to explain to Teddy why that was not such a great plan. But Teddy had another idea.

“What about your friend? The nice man with the yellow hair? He can stay with you?”

Harry sighed. “No, Teddy. He cannot stay here. He lives somewhere else.”

“Why?”

“Because… that’s what he does.” Teddy was obviously dissatisfied with the answer. “And because I do not want him to, ok, Teddy?”

“But you said you are sad when you are alone.”

The striking logic of a five-year-old was hard to argue with. Harry looked at Hermione for help but she only raised her eyebrows at him. Apparently, she approved of Teddy’s line of inquiry even though she had opposed talking about the topic earlier. Run just shrugged his shoulders. Five years and a marriage later, he was still as incompetent at dealing with relationship issues as a teenager.

“Well, Teddy, most adults do not want to live with everyone. Just like you do not like to stay with Ginny alone because she hugs you so much.” Teddy nodded at that, still skeptic about where his uncle was going. “That is why we are looking for a special person. Like Hermione has Ron as her special person. I would like to live with such a special person, too. But sometimes, it is hard to find that person.”

“The man with the yellow hair was not your special person?”

“No, Teddy, he was not.”

“But you are looking for a special person with yellow hair!”, he exclaimed triumphantly.

Harry blushed. “Why would you think that?”, he asked before he could think.

“Because the other man also had yellow hair. And the man before him, too. And the man who was here when grandma dropped me off when she was feeling funny. And-“

“Teddy, why don’t we go in the kitchen and look for some desert, hm?”, Hermione interrupted.

She had heard enough of this and did not like where it was headed. Certainly not child-friendly territory. She usually tried not to bribe Teddy with sweets but these were, in her opinion, special circumstances. Teddy squealed approvingly and hopped down from his chair, grabbing the hand Hermione had stretched out for him.

“You owe me.”, she hissed over her shoulder to Harry. And he knew that this meant a long post bed-time discussion.

Once Teddy had been tucked into his weekend bed in one of the guest rooms that Harry had redecorated for him, the adults took seats in front of the main fireplace. Harry offered drinks which Hermione declined and Ron accepted all too eagerly even though he had needed time to get used to Harry’s selection of Muggle liquor. The men sat on the armchairs facing Hermione, each a generous glass of whiskey in hand. It was clear who was showing nerves about the conversation ahead.

“Harry…”, Hermione started unusually hesitant. “Ron and I are worried about you.”

The corner of Harry’s mouth was twitching. There was an odd comfort in this sentence that he had been hearing with such regularity for twelve years. He did not comment, only gestured for Hermione to continue.

“Have you read the Daily Prophet yet?”, she continued.

“You know I cannot read that bullshit. Too much gossip, too much the-boy-who-lived-and-now-man-who-blah bullshit. After _five_ years. They could just finally get a grip and-“

“Maybe you should start reading it again before Teddy does.”

She handed him a strip of newspaper, dominated by a half-page portrait of himself. He scanned the page, rolling his eyes repeatedly.

“ _That_ is worrying you? Seriously, Hermione, that is all old news. They made a huge thing out of Ginny and me breaking up, and that was… not nice to say the least, especially for her. But this is just a cheap sequel. And you know that I have never been ‘interviewed’.” He paused. “Even though I might have shouted that one sentence at one of the _twenty_ owls Skeeter had sent me with interview _requests_. I knew she was onto something. But if she thinks this is the best ‘scandal’ she can dig up-“

“I’m not worried, ok slightly worried, about this article in particular.”, Hermione interrupted. “But what about the ‘exclusive reports’ Rita Skeeter promises at the end?”

Harry’s eyelid twitched. “Yes, enlighten me with your insights.”

Instead of answering directly, Hermione sighed deeply and stared at the folded hands in her lap for a while. Ron kept very quiet in his seat and nursed his second drink as he was getting visibly more uncomfortable the more directly the conversation touched upon Harry’s sex life. He gulped down another finger width of whiskey.

“I… I guess I am worried about what exactly those interviewees might…”, Hermione blushed. Everything about this was embarrassing her, her lack of words above all. “Hell, I have no clue what you were doing with all these guys and what they might hold against you after you fucked and dumped them.”, she panted out, covering her mouth with her hands quickly as if to stop any further words erupting from it.

Harry blinked once, twice.

“I don’t see any reason why any of them would badmouth me. They come voluntarily, they go voluntarily. We meet, we have sex, we never see each other again. It’s simple. Nothing worth reporting.”, his voice was cold, distant. Ever since the start of their conversation, he had braced himself for these questions and he answered them matter-of-fact-like. That was the only kind of answer he could muster without falling back into the hole of self-pity in which he trapped himself far too often these days.

“Oh, Harry.” Hermione’s voice changed from angry to pitiful. “Ron… don’t you want to say something?”

“No.”, he pressed out between tight lips. His glass was empty. Reviewing Harry’s _gay_ sex life was at the very bottom of his list of conversational topics. He would have disapparated right after dinner if Hermione was not his wife and only Merlin knew what she would have made of their sex life if he had. So he had another drink and endured.

“Look, Hermione.”, Harry tried to resolve the tension. The topic made both him and Ron miserable. Hermione was pushing into a territory she had no right to intrude. “For all the bullshit Skeeter has written in her pathetic life, the one thing is true: I do not want a relationship. But I’m… a man, and I have needs, and I have found a way to arrange things. Ok? I’m doing it safe.”, he added in a hushed voice.

“Harry, I get that you are not feeling good about intense relationships. But what you are doing seems… compulsory. And what is that with all of your… lovers being blonde?”

Harry wished he could laugh at that and wave it off as a meaningless preference. He attempted to, but his cool façade was cracking.

“You _would_ want something more, wouldn’t you, Harry?” Hermione tried quietly, once more.

“Nope.”, he answered with feigned poise but he dug his finders into his thighs as he did so.

Hermione leaned back, realizing that she had bent forward towards Harry like an oversensitive mother for almost the entire conversation. She could _feel_ that something was bothering Harry but she could not get him to admit it.

She tried though. She tried for the next twenty-or-so minutes to unravel Harry’s feelings, to understand them, change them, manage them. But all she got were sporadic reports about how Harry arranged his one-night-stands, how he made sure that most of them did not even know that he was Harry Potter. It all sounded technical, calculating, weirdly rational, and deprived of any feelings whatsoever. It sounds disturbingly Slytherin. She was about to give up when Ron unexpectedly spoke up.

“Mate, you have attachment ish-issues. ‘S not your fault. ‘S been rough times. Bu’ tha’ doesn’t mean you ain’t lonely, man.”

Hermione’s jaw dropped almost audibly. Apparently, the whiskey that had silently disappeared in Ron’s belly had freed a whole other Ronald Weasley.

“An’ so you’re lookin’ for tha’ one bloke but don’ wanna stick to one. Bu’ you got a _type_. An’ _tha’_ looks like… wait a sec, I had somethin’ there.” Ron scratched the back of his head absent-mindedly. “Aaaanywhooo… doesn’ look like the other blokes did the thing. You, mate, are fuckin’ mish-misrable. Writt’n on ‘ya pretty lil’ face. An’ it won’ go ‘way until you fig-figured it out. Yep, gotta figure out who tha’ myshterioush bloke is an’ get ‘im.”

Harry had collapsed in his chair while Ron had been talking. As slurred as the words had been, an undeniable truth was buried under all that alcohol-induced blur.

“Hermione, I think you should take Ron home.”

Still in a state of shock, Hermione nodded, dumbfounded. There was something in the way Harry’s expression had shifted, a darkness in his gaze that even she did not dare to argue with. As she grabbed Ron, heaving the fully grown man’s arm around her shoulder, muttering a weight-lifting spell, and got them ready to floo back home, she looked at Harry again.

“Harry…”

“It’s not ok, Hermione, but it’s manageable.”, he replied softly. “Maybe, for once, Ron is not dead wrong.”

Whether it was the whiskey speaking, whether it had been the result of Hermione’s unwavering interrogations, whether it was the fact that Teddy was asleep upstairs and he knew that he would spend this night alone, Harry was tired of fighting against the obvious. He felt more than lonely, he felt _empty_. And he knew that changing that would be almost as painful as living with the emptiness.

When Ron and Hermione were gone, he remained glued to his armchair, staring into the flames as they resumed their normal color. He recited the habits that Hermione forced him to articulate that night in his head. They came in the evening and left before the morning. They lost their names as soon as they left the house, if not earlier. They were all men, for about two years he had not tried to get involved with a woman. They were as tall as he could find them. They were predominantly blonde. And if he could help it, their eyes were blue. This was as much as the other’s knew. Which was bad enough.

What they, fortunately, could not even guess were the invisible characteristics that Harry was drawn to. He did not like the nice guys, did not like it when they were caring and soft and all-too-careful with him. That was one of the reasons why he preferred to not be Harry Potter. Gay wizards seemed to have a thing for getting protective with the boy-who-endured-oh-so-much-misery. He did not want that kind of sympathy. He did not want another pseudo-foster-sibling, or worse, daddy.

He wanted them to be possessive, greedy, taking the right to ravish him. It was easier to use them if he felt like they used him, establishing equal rights and equal status. No soft feelings, no attachment. Just skin and tongues and lips, lust and passion and sex. No pity, no favors. Just someone to tell him to get on his knees and be, Harry swallowed, a good little toy.

And when Harry combined all the coldness in appearance and attitude, pictures from his past flared up vividly. He closed his eyes. It was ridiculous. But so was his current situation. How many gay, blonde, somewhat kinky, gay wizards were left in London that he had not spotted yet? How often could he still wake up next to a stranger, not knowing his name, not knowing the name _he_ had given himself hours earlier?

His joints were cracking when he forced himself out of the armchair. Even if he knew exactly whom he wanted for more than one night, and he knew, as much as he did not want to – how could he possibly establish contact? He shook his head and tore his hair. This, he decided, was not a question he could answer that night. He would swallow some sleep potion and start thinking about it tomorrow after Teddy had left. He would come up with a plan then.

He could not believe his luck when an owl arrived the next morning that freed him of this task.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the fun shall commence with Chorus 1, aka Chapter 3. You may look forward to an encounter on the slightly ridiculous side. And, I dare say, a quite intense night.


	4. chorus 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains sexual actions that are at the best on the border of consensual. Please be mindful about your tolerance for such content.  
> Apart from that be WARNED that this also contains explicit descriptions of pain, humiliation and all that good stuff. If that is not for you, this chapter is not, either.  
> On the chit-chatty side of things: I modeled the club the two went to after House of Yes in New York, for lack of better knowledge about the scene in London. For a brief period of time, I had also considered Berghain as a model but decided not to bore everyone with lengthy descriptions of Techno music which would have inevitably followed.

Draco Malfoy clenched his teeth in irritation and annoyance. He disliked it when things, or for that matter, people did not obey his wishes. Potter was lucky that he did not consider this game to have started properly yet. Otherwise, Draco would not be standing here.

Here was the entrance to a night club in Kings Head guarded by a man who measured little more than five feet and his seven foot plus plateau high-heel counterpart. Both were covered in stage makeup and glitter, laughing with the regular guests and making fun of obvious newbies. Draco let out another frustrated grunt. Half of the guests who entered were no less dressed up than the door people. Men in heels, women with corsets and crops, which looked suspiciously like the real deal, lots of sequins, lots of leather, lots of _skin_. When had Potter become so fucking _gay_?

Harry’s one and only condition had been to first meet at a place of his choosing, in public. Draco had agreed without hesitation. The suggestion was, he admitted, a sensible choice given that they had exchanged nothing but silence and venomous stares during their last encounter. What he had not fathomed when he agreed was that Harry would pick not only a night club (which Draco despised because of the noise) but a burlesque club (which made him wince and he did not know whether in a good or a bad way) in _Muggle_ London (the point at which he almost wanted to attribute a sadistic streak to Potter).

To top it all off, he let Draco wait. Potter was ten minutes late by now and Draco started to remember that punctuality had never been one of Potter’s virtues. He swallowed down every feeling of displacement and impatience he could find and considered casting an invisibility spell on himself until the other showed up, so he could pretend to have arrived even more fashionably late. But before he could draw his wand, a familiar voice interrupted his thoughts.

“I’m sorry. Got stuck in the underground.”, Harry shouted.

He was approaching at a hurried pace, black coat waving around his waist and legs. An awkward silence followed. Both men stared at one another. Until that moment, they had forced their plans to make sense. Now that they were facing their school-time favorite enemy, and neither was sure whether they had fallen prey to a spontaneous burst of madness.

Harry stared at Draco, letting the appearance of the grown-up version of Malfoy sink in slowly. It was the same platinum hair, brushed back so neatly it made one wonder what kind of charm it needed to stay so awfully orderly. The ice-blue eyes had not changed the slightest bit either, but Malfoy’s chin had grown more distinct, the frame of his face more angular, his shoulders broader. Harry swallowed hard. Only few of the men he had met over the past years had been so goddamn attractive.

Draco stared back, reckoning that the height difference between them still allowed him to look down on Potter ever so slightly. The boyish teenager had grown into a man, nonetheless, a faint stubble of beard being the best evidence. The black hair, however, was still the same neglected mess, the glasses still the same outdated model that hid most of the round green eyes radiating a contradictory blend of innocence and thirst for adventure. Draco cleared his throat.

“Well, shall we?”, he asked, ending the mutual meat inspection.

“Sure”, Harry replied, and Draco would have loved to shove that self-assured grin down his ass. Which was, he decided, a thought to hold on to for the later part of the night.

They entered through two layers of thick velvet curtains into a room like nothing Draco had ever seen before. The lighting was erratic, colorful and red with flashes of blacklight, dancing on walls that were covered in framed mirrors, fake plants, curtains, and splashes of black-and-white tiles. Gauze, more velvet, and chandeliers hung from the ceiling as well as a pair of enormous, _blinking_ eyeballs that guarded the entrance to the dance floor. Bass-heavy music flooded the entire room, mixing with the chatter of other guests and shouted orders at the bar. Draco felt reassured in his belief that Muggles were a separate species. Just a little crazier than he had imagined until now.

Harry stood next to him, smiling lightly, eyes closed. He felt at ease in this environment and he definitely needed that comfort given that he was now truly and irrevocably on a date with Draco Lucius Malfoy, formerly known as one of his most despised enemies, now known to him as the guy who sent an owl proposing a _not_ -friends-with-benefits arrangement based on their similarly difficult living situations.

He knew that his choice of dating location might have look weird, if not wicked, from the outside. But he had done his research and he had his reasons for bringing Malfoy to this exact club. Malfoy had always struck him as someone too controlled, too orderly, too much concerned with appearance and reputation to just let go. He also knew that Malfoy had made no attempt whatsoever to return to the wizarding society, much like the rest of the family, and probably for a good reason. The press had been less than forgiving towards the few Death Eater families that were not exiled or locked up in Azkaban. So he had decided to show Malfoy his strategy to deal with the problem of not wanting to face either one’s own identity or the wizarding world. A parallel universe where wizards and Muggles alike spent a few hours apart from their everyday selves, forgiving and forgetting the boundaries of sanity to be whatever they wanted to be.

A sneaky little voice in his head had also suggested that it might be not the worst strategy to provoke Malfoy at least a little bit. Harry wanted to see the Malfoy that he knew, biting sarcasm, chilled aggression and all. And he wanted to see those traits disinhibited. The fact that the club he chose was also notoriously sexy, scandalous, and kinky had been a plus. The combination of all that sent a shiver down his spine. This, Harry assured himself, had been the right choice, no matter how stony the look on Malfoy’s face was at the moment. A few shots and this would all work out just fine.

Meanwhile, Draco wished his initial plan a pleasant journey to hell. Potter had managed to start the game off on a board with an architecture foreign to him. The question was, how well did Potter know it? He glanced at the other who was signaling that they should make their way over to the bar. Draco took a deep breath of dense air and elbowed the way for both of them before Potter could fall under the impression that he was anywhere close to nervous or in need of guidance. The one in charge, Draco decided, would be him.

“What can I get you, sweetheart?”, the bartender answered in a high-pitched sing-song voice.

Draco ordered gin and tonic, two, without asking Harry’s opinion. While he cursed Muggles for their inability to just make drinks appear, his gaze wandered around the bar area. The left and right end were flanked by a male and a female dancer in no more than sparkling underwear, lounging on the top of the bar counter. Their limbs were moving with almost agonizing slowness, showing off supple muscles and glitter-dusted skin. They played games with approaching guests, coming close, almost embracing them, never touching, always teasing. When the male model caught sight of Draco, he leisurely opened his legs, locking Draco’s gaze as he did so, pushing his hips forward and backward with a smile that balanced on the thin line between amusement and flirtation. Draco felt the corner of his mouth twitching, undecided which direction to take. He bit his tongue to get his face back under control.

“It’s quite a view, no?”, Harry asked from the side.

“Oh, I’m sure it is for our little Gryffindor lamb”, Draco hissed back.

To his astonishment, Potter just giggled. “When you sent that owl, I thought you had a pretty good understanding of what a lamb is capable of.”

Harry continued to grin – a bloody sexy, I-can-show-you-if-you-dare grin. That expression only intensified as Malfoy leaned closer, attempting a threating gesture. The anger made the blue in his eyes flash, his muscles tense, and his nostrils flare. A gentle shiver traveled up Harry’s arms and down his back. He wished that it was not only Malfoy’s torso hovering above him but his entire body pressing firmly against his own. Yet, he did not dare to bridge the distance between them. Not because Malfoy had not shown any signs of affection. Harry had no intention to wait on those, he did not even have a desire for them to emerge. Rather, it was Malfoy’s relative calm, his coolness that held Harry back. All Harry felt able to do was to nudge the other, gently, to drop his defenses and lose his ever-dominant self-control. Maybe, if he just brought his face slightly closer, just a little, Malfoy’s silent threat of overpowering him physically would turn into reality.

Draco stared at Potter with disbelief as the he did not back away; on the contrary, he almost seemed to crane his neck to get even closer. So close that Draco was forced to inhale the smell of cigarettes and coffee that evaporated from the mess of his black hair with nowhere for his eyes to rest on but the disturbingly handsome face. Draco cursed himself for making such a juvenile move. Of course, leaning over the other to demonstrate physical superiority had been an efficient intimidation strategy when they were eleven-year-olds. But in the atmosphere of a nightclub deferring all gender norms and embracing all things kink, intimidation and flirtation were synonyms rather than opposites. And Potter responded beautifully to it. The sassy grin faded to a shy smile, the green eyes widened into round doe-eyes begging for sympathy. Draco’s fingers dug into thin air in a desperate attempt to express the tension that was building in his body. He was fighting for control, over himself much more than over Potter.

Why he was fighting, Draco could not tell. Perhaps he was fighting to maintain appearance in public. Perhaps he was even still fighting to maintain appearance in front of Potter despite the fact that he had suggested an arrangement between them. Draco was fighting for composure in a battle that demanded at least one of them to lose it completely. They both knew where this was going; they had agreed on it before they even met.

“Here you go darlings.”, the bartender commented as they put down the drinks in front of Draco and Harry. “And now you should _really_ go and let out some of that steam, will ‘ya?”

They pointed towards the oversized blinking eyeballs and the frantically pulsing lights of the dance floor. Draco huffed, grabbing his drink and bringing it to his mouth in one smooth sweep. Harry just took a sip, disappointed that the first episode of proximity had ended so suddenly. For a moment, they stood next to each other, facing the open doors to the dance floor motionless while they rediscovered the music that send vibrations through the entire club. This was the point of greatest uncertainty in Harry’s plan. If Malfoy had any sense for rhythm, any passion for music, any connection to the joy that moving one’s body to the beat can bring, he would get him where he wanted him within the next hour. If Malfoy’s self-chastisement went so far as to forbid dancing, too, his cause was probably lost. Harry cast a cautious glance at the man beside him and saw his foot twitch.

Draco could not help his body aching to move once his attention had come to focus on the music that the dance floor spilled over them. His foot picked up the rhythm automatically while he concentrated on not letting any other body parts break lose. Draco had his passions, and music was one of them. Of course, Muggle techno was not a part of his record collection. Still, it was based on the same intuitive math as any other music, the same emotional embellishments, the same millennia-old understanding of sounds. Draco even had to grant the bass-heavy beats a certain complexity that most wizard-made music lacked. Yet, he hesitated to express any appreciation for it. Displays of passion were also displays of potential weaknesses, and it was dangerous to reveal them to the wrong people. This was why nobody but his mother knew how deeply music was able to move him, why nobody but his father knew how addicted he was to the feeling of flying, why nobody but Blaise knew how infatuated he could become with his lovers.

Harry let the ice in his glass crackle while he observed Malfoy who had sunk into an internal monologue. The other’s face was still held-back and his arms were still crossed, but his right foot was betraying him. So Harry decided to make a first proper move. If Malfoy responded anything like when he was making his way to the bar, Harry would not be the one in the lead for long. It took him three more seconds to muster enough courage, then he pushed off the edge of the bar and weaved his way through the growing crowd. Malfoy followed, as predicted, not walking behind him for long, as predicted, squeezing in front of Harry before they had crossed the open folding doors that marked the border of the dance floor.

While the music had created ambience in the entrance hall, it was the beating heart of the second room. It filled every corner from floor to ceiling, covering the swinging mass of bodies with its vibrations. People were dancing on every square inch of surface: floor, steps, stage, bar, couches, even inside two human-sized bird cages hanging from the ceiling. The heat of other bodies dancing, the atmospheric pressure of communal movement swept over Draco with unexpected intensity. He had rarely felt the atmosphere of a room weighing down on him so heavily, dragging him into its own universe. And even though something inside of him wanted to panic, he silenced these worries with a decisive step into the crowd. Nobody knew who he was, here, nobody had a reason to judge, to criticize, to mock, to fault him. As much as he despised the Muggle world, because he despised it, nothing that happened there was of any import. Today, Draco would not take this as a deficiency but as an opportunity. Too much energy had been left lingering inside his body and it wanted out, now. The façade of silent cool that had hidden any passion, any greater emotion whatsoever, gave in as he entered into the anonymous circle of dancers.

Harry smiled as he saw Malfoy walk into the crowd with his head held high and his body undeniably starting to move in synchrony with the beat. He followed him closely, so close it was more difficult not to touch him than to just let his own body get pressed snug against the taller man. When Malfoy suddenly stopped at a spot that was not yet overcrowded, however, the delicate balance between distance and proximity collapsed, and Harry found his chest against Malfoy’s back. Even though he gave an automatic jump, Malfoy did not shoo Harry away immediately. Instead, he started to move his hips. Harry followed the lead of the pressure they were putting against the space between his navel and crotch. Malfoy was not dancing like this for the first time, he thought, or if he was, he had an unnatural talent to seduce the one dancing next to him.

Draco submitted to the music, taken to a different place where nothing mattered but the harmony between all his senses. Hearing and seeing and feeling melted into one singular perception of unity and the more he moved his body, the more he became a part of that coherent whole himself. Conscious thought played no role in this process; his mind was clear and bright like the midnight sky. In a corner of his mind, Draco realized that in that very moment, he was content, and when he thought about the proximity of another human behind him, about the fact that someone at this very moment wanted to be close to him, he was more than content. He was happy.

And that feeling grew when Harry’s body hugged against his. It felt good to feel the heat of the other against his back, his movements in synchrony with his own. Harry let his groin touch and rub against Draco’s butt every now and then, shy, tentative attempts to turn the dancing into something more. Whether it was a sign of growing impatience or shrinking inhibitions, Draco could not care less. He toyed around with evading Harry’s touch, meeting it, provoking it as he saw fit and heard the fitting turn in the music. Even though he knew that it was impossible to hear over the blasting sound of techno, Draco liked imagining Harry starting to growl when he moved away, slipping a sigh when he allowed a firm touch of their torsos.

His imagination was not wrong, it even fell a little short of what had started to happen with Harry behind his back. And while Harry enjoyed Malfoy’s little game, all that teasing and touching, it also drove him crazy that the advances were always followed by a retreat, that every touch was replaced with emptiness sooner than he could lean into it. Patience was none of Harry’s strength. He did not want to play Malfoy’s dancing game anymore. He would rather start his own. Decidedly, he put his hands on Malfoy’s hip bones, forcing him to keep contact, pushing Malfoy’s thigh against his loin. Malfoy’s skin felt warmer under his hands than he expected, a little overheated even. The urge to slip his hands a little lower made his fingers itch. Harry grinned inwardly as he let his head come close to Malfoy’s, his mouth next to his ear.

“Why still so frigid?”, he whispered.

The sentence itself was less important than the breeze of his breath against Draco’s neck. Harry needed him to drop his cautiousness. He needed Draco to respond to more than the music, needed his attention regardless what kind of attention that might be. Provocation had guaranteed attention when they were young, and Harry had no doubt that it was still an effective method.

“Are you still scared of me?”

And Draco jumped at that provocation instantly, turned around, and grasped Harry’s wrists firmly. Draco’s grip was strong enough to prevent Harry’s fingers from moving. He forced Harry’s hands down and pressed them against the side of his thighs. He faced Harry with an angry stare, but his aggression was not cold and calculating. It possessed the same glow as the atmosphere on the dance floor; it radiated the heat of passion and excess energy. Harry met Draco’s glare with masochistic curiosity. This was the Draco Malfoy he had hoped to unleash. The sheer fierceness emanating from his gaze desiccated Harry’s throat and mouth.

Draco closed his hands tighter around Harry’s wrists, so tight he knew it crossed the line between touch and hurt. With his body still moving to the music, he watched Harry’s eyes narrowing as the pressure against his wrists increased. A physical tension was building between them; the heat inside the small gap between their bodies was more than the air’s particles in accelerated motion.

The music faded into the back of Draco’s mind as he watched the expressions on Harry’s face change. He had lost his trance-like absorption and returned to acute awareness of his surroundings. This was Muggle London, this was Harry Potter. Draco’s dancing came to a halt. His anger flared when he thought back at how the night had started, and he dug his nails into Harry’s flesh. Harry’s pupils widened under the increasing painfulness of Draco’s touch.

“Do I look scared to you?”, Draco hissed into the little space between them. “I rather think _you_ are the one who look scared now.”

Harry’s movements stopped, too. He tried to clench his hands into fists but could not. Draco smiled a barely visible smile of triumph. He felt like he just understood the architecture of their little game. If Potter _wanted_ him to be mean, he could surely deliver a fine sample of his malice. He certainly deserved some revenge for being dragged into a Muggle club.

“Maybe you have not even scared me yet.”, Harry replied even though it took quite some effort to raise his voice.

Draco raised one eyebrow. But before he could make sense of the situation, he felt Harry’s body flat against his, lips close enough to touch.

“And maybe I like to be scared”, Harry whispered. His lips brushed against Draco’s with every syllable. The softness of the touch, the danger of enraging the already boiling Draco even more made his heart beat faster. For a second, he did not dare to move, stood waiting with his neck still stretched out towards Draco’s face.

Draco slowly removed a hand from one of Harry’s wrists, brought it to the other’s cheek. “Still such a brave boy”, he mused as he clenched Harry’s jaw between his thumb and fingers. “Still so much disrespect for any form of danger.”

Harry’s free hand sneaked its way to Draco’s back pocket. “What danger? Tell me more.”

Draco lifted Harry’s chin with his middle finger. Harry followed the lead of his touch without resistance or hesitation. His blood drummed against the veins in his throat. Breathing became laborious in this position. He let his thumb slide inside Draco’s back pocket, leaning into Draco to stabilize his stance.

“Ah, the danger of the unknown, for one.”, Draco replied. He felt the beating of Harry’s pulse under his fingertips and Harry’s weight leaning against his torso. The black stubbles on Harry’s chin scratched against his palm. “The danger of falling for me, for another.”

Harry chuckled without amusement. He could barely make a sound. But Draco was close enough to hear even a whisper despite the music wrapping them into a noisy bubble. “And why would _that_ be dangerous, _Draco_?”, he continued to nudge.

“You really want this _Potter_ , don’t you?”, Draco said. The light touch of Harry’s hand on his ass had not escaped his attention. With every sentence, it had slipped deeper into his pocket. With every question, he had pushed his body closer, making sure that his growing erection could not escape Draco’s attention either. Potter was a tease, and the twinkle in his eyes betrayed how well he knew it.

“Yes.”, he sighed.

“Then you will beg for it.”, Draco demanded. He released Harry’s jaw only to grab the back of his neck.

“Please.” Harry’s free hand pressed flat against Draco’s ass, pushing their hips to close contact.

“Please what?” Draco’s hand grabbed the skin below Harry’s hairline. Harry hissed as he let out a breath of air. The grip was paralyzing, sharp, and just an inch away from the most sensitive spot on his neck.

“Please.”, he repeated in search of better words. But his mind felt clouded and his head dizzy.

“Please let me go?” Draco loosened his grasp on Harry’s neck slightly.

“No.” Harry used his newly acquired freedom to try and bring his head closer to Draco’s again, but the other was faster at restoring his grip.

“Please what, Potter?” Draco’s body was flushed with the elation of victory. “Please forgive me for trying to play games with you?”

Harry swallowed hard and remained silent. For a moment, anxiety welled up inside him. His neck started to ache. His body was still so close to Draco’s that it numbed the part of his brain that would have been capable of an intelligent response.

“Please forgive my insolence?”

“Yes, please.”, Harry managed to whimper.

“Say it, say it properly. And I might be tempted to get back to our initial agreement.”

Harry’s body trembled, torn between humiliation and the desire to give in. His victory lay in his defeat, he knew as much, and yet it was difficult to say the words. Draco’s growing impatience was tangible in the intensity of his grip around Harry’s wrist and neck.

“Please forgive me.”

“Good.” Draco gave a short nod and pushed Harry away from his body. He could not quite believe what the harshness did to the other even though he had literally felt it. But that did not mean that the other needed to know how it affected him. At least not yet. “Let’s get out of here then.”

 

~*~

 

The curtains in Draco’s bedroom hung open, but no moon lit the sky. The room was dark and silent. Harry appeared with the back of his knees touching the edge of the bed, facing Draco who examined him with an indistinct expression. Harry waited, mouth ajar.

The expression on Draco’s face wavered between fading anger and growing arousal. His blood was hot with both. Never had someone lured him into wanting them by sheer provocation. Never had he faced a lover who wanted his anger, his frustration, and his greed.

“Strip.”, he commanded and began doing the same. There was no need for subtleties anymore.

Harry did not move from his spot as he took off his coat, his sweater, his shoes and socks, his shirt, his underwear. The discarded clothes built a messy semi-circle around him. Draco wiped them away with a flick of his wand. Harry had left his in the side pocket of his coat and Draco noticed his lack of defense with a thin smile. That man gave him so much power over him; why?

“What do you want?”, Draco asked. His voice was still cold, but his question was honest.

“I…” Harry’s mind was awash with the excitement of the moment, busy processing the sight of the naked man in front of him who revealed a body more than true to its feel. “I just want…” He reached out for Draco’s chest with one hand. The thin layer of hair that covered it was invisible in the darkness that dominated the room.

“Go ahead, touch me.” Draco stood unmoved as Harry’s fingers ran cautiously across his torso tracing the outlines of his chest, shoulders, the line running from the crate between his collarbones to his navel. They hesitated there before hushing across the hair that covered Draco’s groin, finally coming to a tentative rest at the base of his half-erect penis. Right there, Draco grabbed hold of Harry’s wrist again.

“Look at me.”, he demanded as he raised Harry’s hands above his head. With Harry’s attention on his gaze, he mustered him from head to toe. His breath deepened again, making him aware that it had turned shallow and erratic when Harry had touched him. He allowed himself ample time to relax and take in the sight of Harry’s stretched out stomach, of the muscles working under its surface, of his exposed middle, his tensed quads, his premature erection.

On a whim, he let go of Harry’s hands only to seize him by a fist of hair. “You like to be told what to do?”

Harry nodded even though it hurt.

“And you like to be hurt, isn’t that so?”

Harry’s breathing turned heavy and audible. He was not sure whether Draco wanted an answer. When he whispered an affirmation, it was acknowledged by a firm pull on his hair and a greedy hand on his buttock.

“Tell me why, then, I should feel so inclined to give you what you want?”

“Because you want it, too.”, Harry replied, looking straight into Draco’s eyes. They had turned as dark and misty as his own. “Because you have always loved to see my suffering…” He moaned as Draco’s hand slid lower, between his legs and dugs his nails into the tender flesh. “… my humiliation…” His last words were muffled by Draco’s other hand closing around his throat. “… my surrender.”

Draco chuckled into his ear. He had let his wand drop as both of his hands were busy with the panting Harry whose body arched towards him in a silent plea. He caressed the scratches he had left inside the other’s thighs with a gentle stroke. Then he grabbed the same patch of skin again, making Harry twitch and gasp for air. Yet, a smile grew on Harry’s face.

Draco felt the other’s erection grinding against his thigh. Whatever the pain did to the other, Draco relished its effects. How Harry sucked in the air desperately between moans when he left red scratch marks on his thighs. How his body tensed when he hit him with the flat of his hand. How he leaned into the hand that almost suffocated him. How he yearned for the person that offered nothing but harm and pain.

While Harry was lost in a space that he knew and craved, his sense of time and space evaporated. His body consisted only of the immediate sensations of pain and pleasure that hailed down on him, washed any thoughts and doubts away in a flood of stimulation. His cock screamed for attention that it would not receive while he found his hands placed firmly around Draco’s. He obediently caressed what he had been offered, kneeling in front of the bed, head bent, indulging in the feeling of the other’s arousal.

And Draco was aroused, more so with every touch and every moan and every fear-inspired, hasty glance that Harry cast on him. The intensity of it was disturbing, mind-numbing. He grabbed the other by the shoulders, forcing him to stand, to turn. Pressed him flat onto the bed, running his nails across the already bruised skin once more. Heard that little whimper. Saw that beautiful, round ass right in front of his cock. It was dangerous to give him so much power, Draco thought, as he ran his hand down Harry’s spine into the cleft between his legs.

Harry’s hips twitched back, against his hand. Draco wanted to hear another please, but he had also grown impatient with himself. His craving had turned to lust and it demanded satisfaction, now. So he fed his desire with a first, violent thrust.

And the man below him screamed out in pain but Draco had already gone too far to remain in control of his urges. Harry was hot and tight and just exactly what he needed. His body was flooded with pleasure as his hands held onto Harry’s hips. He could not think anything but that he wanted this now, right now, once more, and deeper, and just once more.

Draco panted. His orgasm had left him blank and paralyzed for a moment. As he withdrew, his look fell onto the body he had used just seconds ago. When Harry started to move, it was the violent tremor of suppressed sobs. And a shadow of realization was cast over Draco’s blurry mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. This was not easy. Despite all the good memories flowing into this. I blame it on the writing workshop I have taken in between (academic writing but that does not really make a difference…). Let me know if that helped or hurt the cause XP There will be more drama, more sex and less detail in the next chapter until… well, we will see what happens at the very end.


	5. Verse 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, people. Join me in rubbing the glitter from House of Yes out of your eyes (I am doing that right now, literally, and I have no clue why I am even awake already). Harry and Draco have some thinking to do and some shit to get together.

“Can you just please leave me alone here for a moment?” Harry’s voice was far more annoyed than pleading. “Or for a day?”

He had not intended to add the last bit, but it had slipped out of his mouth nonetheless. Catherine blinked at him, visibly hurt.

“Okay”, she whispered and walked backwards out of the study. Harry heard her steps echoing down the stairs. Oh, he knew that sound all too well. He only wished that Catherine’s steps would also disappear from his life as lightly as so many other men’s had.

But Catherine was here to stay. At least her clothes did, in a neat stack next to Harry’s, her toothbrush, and her shoes. Even one of her plants had found its way onto one of the kitchen windowsills where it slowly withered. Catherine had found a secure place in Harry’s life and she would not leave it, not even after numerous episodes like this.

Harry was unable to recount how often he had rudely shoved Catherine out of his study, or how often he had retreated to one of the guest beds in the middle of the night. Catherine endured it all with the expression of a martyr. She never complained openly, never yelled at him, never demanded an apology. She just came back the next day with warm hands and open arms and held him for as long as he needed to be held.

She was good, too good for Harry. Which made her the perfect partner for him in everybody else’s opinion. Hermione loved her, not least because she had arranged their first date. Ron was relieved that his best friend had returned to a heterosexual relationship even though he would never admit it openly. Even Teddy liked Catherine because she let him call her Cat and because she baked truly incredible cookies.

Harry liked her, too, not only because of the cookies. She did not ask for much, cared for him, was kind to him, forgiving, even loved him. He could barely stand it anymore. His life had developed into a perfectly normal, too close to perfect sequence of mildly pleasant days. Catastrophes were as unheard of as excitement. Even the Daily Prophet had lost interest in his life after a three-part series on the reformed savior of the wizarding world. Harry was bored. And he felt as miserable about it as he felt miserable about feeling miserable. Surely, he was not entitled to complain about his life anymore, now.

The parchment on his desk stared at him blankly. Even though he technically did not need to work, he had agreed to help a small group of scholars to categorize and research the dark magic that had been used by the former Death Eaters. A task that used to excite him and suited him. The writing and communications part of it discouraged him at times, but it had been more than beneficial to be able to work from home when the press still scandalized his every step. For the past few days, however, he had not enjoyed the project anymore. In part, because Catherine had made him swear that he would not use either small animals or his own person as test subjects for the execution of the spells anymore. Theorizing and experiencing the dark arts were two different worlds and Harry needed both to fuel his enthusiasm.

He sighed deeply and let his fingers play with the tip of his quill. A low voice residing in his chest rather than his head whispered explanations to him. It was all so painless, tasteless, devoid of friction. The tip of his index finger pushed against the sharp end of the quill. Where was the pleasure, how did it stand out, if there was no pain at all? A first drop of blood trickled down the shaft of his writing feather. Where was the joy, how could there be any thrill, if there was no challenge? He brought the bleeding finger to his mouth slowly, tasting blood, sensing the pressure of his heart beat for the first time in days.

He had tried so many other things. He had swung himself on a broom and spent hours on end flying across the London sky. He had bought running shoes, trying it the Muggle way, and panted up and down the streets until his lungs felt like burning rocks in his chest. He had considered a hiking tour through the steepest mountains in the highlands but discarded the idea when he realized that such a trip would have required him to take Catherine with him. Nothing made his body feel alive as much as the sting of pain. He felt sick.

A month ago, he had tried to explain the idea to Catherine. Even though he knew that should would never be able to do the same things to him as other lovers had, he had hoped that they would come to an accommodation. Instead, he rose the dragon of her never-ending concern for him. She understood exactly what he wanted. Yet, she also needed to understand _why_ , and that was a question Harry could not answer. So Catherine presumed that his desire to feel pain was a relic of his traumatizing past and as such, it needed to be treated, not catered to.

For Harry, the reason for his desires had become irrelevant more than a year ago. He, just like Catherine, had suspected that something in him tried to re-establish the wicked state of suffering-as-default his teenage years had imposed on him. But after he realized that it was not difficult at all to find other people, wizards and Muggles alike, who shared his sado-masochistic needs, he questioned this explanation. None of his lovers seemed particularly traumatized. And for a while, Harry accepted his cravings without worrying about their roots.

At the same time, he knew that acceptance was a minority standpoint. Therefore, he had avoided mentioning any of it to Catherine until he could not stand it anymore, until he felt an urge to hit his head against the wall like Kreacher. Not that this kind of punishment would have satisfied any of his needs. But the heavy, silent presence of unspoken wants drove him mad with himself.

So now he had come down to scratching his fingers open with a quill. Another sigh reminded him of his own physical presence. The little prick on his fingertip had closed in the meantime, the dried blood on the feather shaft had darkened to a brown lump. He was not angry at Catherine for trying to help him in the way she thought was best. He simply wished he could change her opinion on what was best for him.

 

~*~

 

“Who was _that_?”, Blaise echoed through the door of his bathroom. Draco’s latest catch had just run into him. When he saw the naked Blaise standing in front of the mirror, he had slammed the door shut and fled via apparition. “And did you send him to the wrong bathroom on purpose?”

“Ach, don’t bother.”, Draco shouted back across the hallway. He stood in the doorframe of his own room with crossed arms.

“Also: Please tell me that whoever that was suffers from _very_ prematurely graying hair.” Blaise walked out of the bath with a towel tightly clenched around his entire body as if he was afraid of running into another stranger that morning. Which had happened the other week.

“Older guys give better blowjobs.”, Draco mock-answered his question.

“Spare me your insights.”

“Older women, too, but that correlation is not quite as reliable, I’m afraid, and they are also harder to get-“

“Too. Much. Information!”

Draco laughed bitterly. He had gotten better at his game, less vulnerable, crueler. At least, he told himself, that Potter-escapade had cured him from his childish infatuations with his lovers. Now he was content with simply sending them home whenever he felt like it, long before the point at which they started to develop this disgusting attachment.

But they were never quite the same as Potter, never quite as satisfying. There was no thrill to the game. It was not always easy but never challenging. They lacked the decade-old history of banter, tease, and fighting. Some of them pretended to enjoy Draco’s harshness but their eagerness lacked the provocative sting of Harry’s. They did not seek the same kind of fear. They did not even make Draco want to tease them.

With his propensity for any initial infatuation lost, the lovers that came and went left him cold altogether. After all, and just like before, Draco could not bother to care about their satisfaction at all. On good days, he succeeded to convince himself that it was better not to care. Fewer glasses were broken, fewer letters burned. On bad days, a thick blanket of depression lay over him and made him want to hide underneath it without ever contacting or touching another person ever again.

Today had started off as a good day because the man who had panicked about his accidental bathroom encounter had shown a talent for spectacular blowjobs. Yet, a nagging pain behind Draco’s temples concerned him. He often woke up with a headache these days, and he knew all too well why. A glass of wine for dinner had turned into two, another drink on a date into one before, one during, one after, an occasional aperitif into a hardwired habit. Draco could not remember when he had been able to fall asleep without the soothing warmth of alcohol in his stomach.

Draco liked to think that he still held control over his routines, and that Blaise thought the same. In reality, he could read Blaise’s looks, and he struggled for every bit of self-control. Every second night, he told himself that he would remain sober. Then he either stared at his date for the night or his empty bed and both looked empty and depressing. So he wished his initial intentions to hell. Sometimes he made it through until the late part of the night. But confronted with the prospect of either fucking another men’s ass or wanking to the unavoidable image of Potter begging, all restraint collapsed, and another glass of whiskey appeared in his hand. It was like swallowing medicine: disgustingly bitter with an aftertaste of desperate hope.

“You look miserable”, Blaise commented when he walked past Draco. He waited in front of his room’s door for a reply.

“Thank you for the compliment. Flattering as always.”, was all that Draco had to say.

“I warned you that this Potter-thing was not a good idea.”, Blaise went on. The serenity in his voice contrasted with his wet hair and the need to hold his towel in place with one hand to cover his nudity. “Something is seriously wrong with you since that night. Like, more than usual wrong.”

“And what leads you to the conclusion of a causal relation other than temporal proximity?”, Draco countered.

“The fact that you _refuse_ to talk about that night at all.”

“Because there is nothing to say.”

“Because there is nothing you _want_ to say.”

“Which should be practically identical to you, Blaise. Friendship does not come with exclusive rights to extensive dating reports.”

“But as much as you try to ignore it, friendship _does_ come with exclusive rights to worry about one another. And I’m worried.”

“Which proves what, exactly? That you have unreasonable feelings of concern? That could be the first signs of paranoid schizophrenia. I would talk to a professional.”

“No, you would not. Because that is what you should have done _years_ ago.”

“To have the relation with my father examined in even more depth than the Prophet did? No, thank you.”

“No, to finally figure out why there is a huge hole in your brain where other people process interpersonal relationships.” It took Blaise all the self-restraint he could muster before his first cup of tea to refrain from shouting. “It has always been ridiculous, but this is the pinnacle of it all. Really, you behave like a bachelor in his midlife crisis who has just lost his wife to the gardener. Drinking and screwing anything with a heartbeat. Like – who was that guy, really? Not that I would care about that, I just care to at least have an inkling about the people that sleep and do whatever else under the same roof as I.

“You, Draco Malfoy, have become pathetic. As long as you had at least an initial idea of interest in the people you fucked, it was quite alright with me to find somebody else’s coat by the door every few days. As long as you had at least _fun_ sleeping around, I was happy for you, sort of. As long as there was any sort of _emotion_ involved. But now it’s just – what the hell is it that you are doing? Ego-preservation? Some new form of fucked-up physical exercise?”

Blaise needed to breathe, but he had not said everything yet.

“And the connection to Potter is _obvious_. The only thing that is opaque to me is what the hell he’s done to you.”

“He’s done nothing.”, Draco bellowed.

“Then what the hell did you-“

“Not. Your. Business!” Draco smashed his door shut.

 

Draco did not join Blaise for breakfast, or for lunch, or for dinner. The door to his room remained shut the entire day, no sound escaped it. Every time Blaise walked past the door, he pressed an ear against the thick wood but either Draco did not move as little as a toe, or a silencing spell had been cast over it. Even though Draco had shown signs of depression and serious alcohol issues for a long time, and Blaise had learned to cope with both, this isolating behavior was new. And it worried Blaise sick.

When the second day passed without a visible sign of Draco’s presence, Blaise ran out of patience.

“Draco Lucius Malfoy, you will un-hex and open this door immediately or I will break through it magically and physically!”, Blaise shouted from the hallway. The answer was the sound of glass shattering against the wooden door that separated him from Draco. “I have warned you!”

With a series of curses, some destroying the wards Draco had put up, some mere cuss, he forced his way into Draco’s study. To his surprise, he found Draco bent over his desk, scribbling frantically. The tip of his feather literally flew across the parchment even as Draco startled. He stared at Blaise with wide eyes that were lined with the red traces of sleep deprivation, alcohol, and, Blaise feared, even tears.

“What is going _on_ with you?”, he asked harshly. Then he added in a softer voice. “I have not seen you like this since the end of the war. And that was when your family was-“

“Yes, please, remind me of that, _now_ , Blaise. Cheer me up!”

“I’m sorry. Listen, I did not mean to upset you.”

“Well done!”

“I’m just worried, ok? I know you cannot handle people caring for you or taking care of you, not your parents, not me, not any single one of your… whatever. But sometimes people _do_ care, and you cannot stop them just by being the most annoying, ungrateful, offensive, self-righteous prick alive.”

“Are you done?”, Draco asked quietly.

His feather ended its duty with the characteristic swing of Draco’s signature. Blaise took an audible breath.

“Yes.”

“Good. Then leave. And repair the door when you are out. It looks like you left quite some damage on it. Those carvings were expensive, by the way.”

Blaise twitched but did not surrender to the reflex of doing what Draco demanded. “No. I meant it when I asked about what was wrong. I want to know, and I need to know. After all, I am the one who lives with a semi-alcoholic mess.”

“Zabini, if you find my presence so unbearable, you know that we can end this living arrangement at any time.”, Draco replied coldly.

“No. I do care about you. If you want it or not.”

“You sound like a broken record.”

“ _I_ am not the one who is broken.”

Blaise swallowed hard under the deathly glance that Draco shot at him. Piercing silence filled the room. Both men stood, frozen. Blaise’s gaze fell back on the parchment Draco had so feverishly filled with letters. In a fit of bravery, he snatched it from the desk. The content was nothing like what he expected.

 

_Potter, Harry, whichever you prefer,_

_You have the honor of receiving one of the rarest statements in the wizarding world. An apology from a Malfoy. Yes, I am sorry for what I have done to you._

_It is understandable that you do not wish to continue our briefly established arrangement. It is understandable that you will tear this letter apart and burn it. It would even be understandable if you do not even open it. But if you have, and you are reading this, hear me out. Please. Ok, fucking please. From a Malfoy. There you have the rarest statement in the wizarding world._

_So, here is my apology: I apologize for having pushed past boundaries; I apologize for ignoring a no._

_I do not apologize for not being_ nice _to you; I do not apologize for not courting you like a lovesick fool;. I do not apologize for wanting to use you; I do not, and will never, apologize for kicking you out of my bed at 2 AM; I do not apologize for this letter._

_Let me know if any of this can convince you to commence an arrangement. I think we would both be better off with it._

  1. _L. M._



 

Blaise remained silent for a long time. He handed the letter back to Draco, looking him straight in the eyes. Draco nodded, folded the letter, sealed it, and attached it to the leg of his patiently waiting owl. With a flick of his wrist, the window opened to release the bird into the night.

“That might be the bravest thing I’ve ever seen you do. Or the most stupid. Probably both.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise, things will go upward for at least one chapter after this. I do not guarantee for more though...


	6. Chorus 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had promised it would get better, at least for a bit. Sorry to Brooke that it took me about a chapter longer for expectations and phantasies to finally become (fictive) reality.

Harry waited on the corner where Diagon Alley met Knockturn Alley. After several letters, curses, broken vases, and glasses of whiskey, he had let Draco chose the meeting point this time. Apparently, one tavern occupied the corner right at the border of the lighter and the darker side of wizarding London. And, of course, Draco had a taste for symbolism.

Draco appeared at exactly eight o’clock. An air of tension surrounded him like a sticky cloud. A shallow furrow between his brows marked the concentration it took him to speak.

“Thank you for coming.” Draco’s voice was quiet and flat as if someone had stripped all emotion from the sentence before letting it out of his mouth. “I don’t know if I had done it if I were you.”

“I am not you.”, Harry stated as a matter of fact. “Thank Merlin.”

What could have been an insult was coated in a tone that transformed it into friendly mockery. It was a small gesture that eased the tension just enough to allow Draco to take a few steps towards Harry.

“Shall we?”, he asked. This time, he meant it as a question and not as a command.

Both men stepped into the bar with raised shoulders and lowered heads. Even though they had agreed that it did not make sense to hide from the world they both lived in anymore, they regretted their decision already. More than one of the other guests raised their eyebrows when they realized who had just entered the room and _with_ whom.

“I can already smell the headlines.”, Harry commented stiffly.

“What does it smell like?”, Draco asked half mocking, half serious.

“Like dirty laundry.”

Draco allowed himself a weak smile. He reckoned Harry’s response to be the kind of comment he would make. The warm feeling of sympathy eased the stiffness in his shoulders as they sat down at a table in the darkest corner of the pub. Harry cast a series of silencing spells around them before he even took off his coat. Draco appreciated it.

“Tell me again why we are here.”, Harry muttered behind the hand he used to massage the bridge of his nose. The question was addressed to himself, but Draco answered.

“I think we are here because something needs to change. Quite drastically.”

“That may be true for you, Malfoy. But how do you come to the conclusion that _I_ need a change?” Harry set his glasses back on his nose to take a first proper look at Draco’s face. It was even paler than usual, and a sickly red framed his eyes.

“Because you are here.”, Draco answered dryly.

“Well, before I was here, obviously.”

“I didn’t know.”

“So why did you write that letter?”

“Because I needed to.”

“And the second?”

“Because you responded.” Draco met Harry’s stare. “And that’s when I knew you wanted a change, too.”

“I am not doing this sober”, Harry muttered and left the table.

Draco swallowed hard. He knew that he _should_ do this sober. Even if there were not many social interactions that he stood up to sober anymore, this was the one he needed to approach with a clear head. When Harry came back with two beer and two shot glasses, he knocked the liquor down nonetheless. Harry followed suit.

“Ok, you are right. I need this shit piece of life to change.”, Harry admitted. “I don’t understand why that must involve you, of all people, but that’s how it is.”

“I know.” Draco’s eyes wandered undecided between his glass, the tabletop, and Harry’s chin. He could not muster the confidence to look the other straight in the eyes again. “Much the same here. Everything seems… quite unsatisfactory.”

Harry snorted. The sound of it reminded himself of Draco. And a little voice I his head mocked him for it.

“I have read the stories about you and that girl.”, Draco continued. “If it had not been for the tortured look on your face in the photographs, I would have thought your life had taken a quite pleasant turn.”

“That obvious?”

“Not that obvious but wishful thinking achieves a lot.”

“It’s… complicated.”, Harry said, trying not to overanalyze Draco’s comment. “Catherine is objectively really, really good. You know, kind of close to perfect.”

“Hm.” Draco held his tongue. A story was about to be told, and he did not want to interrupt it.

“But that does not mean it _feels_ right. It just feels… empty. A different kind of empty than before. Maybe better. I don’t know. Sometimes it’s nice to have her around, to have someone who is kind to you. But…” Harry hunted for words that slipped away faster than he could grasp them. A tangle of thoughts obscured the path to the sentences he was looking for. “I don’t want nice all the time.” He paused. “I… need that friction. It sounds so, so crazy but I need the fighting and the insults and…” He took another breath. “the pain.”

Draco swallowed. The vulnerable mess Harry had transformed himself into struck a chord in him that sent vibrations through his entire body. And that was the key, he knew, that Harry always made something inside him ring. He did not leave him cold and untouched like the remaining sea of meaningless faces. Whether he wanted to be faster, be cleverer, be better than him, insult him, fight him, fuck him, he wanted to be something in relation to him.

“Why me?”, he finally asked.

“Why me?”, Harry echoed.

“Has nobody ever told you that it is rude to answer a question with a question?”

“Maybe, but I don’t particularly care about rudeness right now.”

“How very atypical of you, Potter.” Draco reached for his glass, but he let his fingers slide down the sides when he caught himself acting out of habit, against intentions. “You realize that this is not getting us anywhere?”

“I do. But I don’t know where it would get us if we get somewhere.”

Harry gulped down a third of his beer. He set his elbow down an inch closer to Draco’s. The gesture was too deliberate to contain any semblance of spontaneity. Harry did not care as long as it carried a message that he did not want to verbalize. As Harry let the thick silence settle between them again, Draco’s patience reached its limit.

“Listen, I don’t have the nerves for this kind of spare-my-feelings, treat-me-like-a-raw-egg game.” Within a blink, Draco’s hand had grabbed the arm Harry had set that deciding inch closer to him. One determined yank forced Harry to look at his face. “You want sex with me. You want it because I am the one who will grab you by the hair and spit in your face without becoming powerless before your doe-eyes. Because I am the one who wants to control you and beat you and wants to see you beg for it on your knees.”

Harry swallowed hard. Draco’s breath crushed hot against his cheeks. He was paralyzed and anxious, and Draco’s intense stare firmly held him in this state.

“And that is why me, why you. Because the give-and-take-and-trust game does not work for us. We don’t play nice, we play dirty. That is all life has taught us. And we’ve always been good at playing dirty with one another. You pull, I push, someone gets crushed against a wall, and Merlin knows: I will make sure it’s you. And the sheer violence of it is so satisfying because for once, something is happening. Because for once, it’s not some distant threat slowly clenching our throats but good-old physical, direct, personal attack. It’s always been this way and now it has taken a rather perverse turn, but I couldn’t care less.”

Draco had rattled  his monologue off in a single breath. His hand was still wrapped around Harry’s arm even though it now held onto it rather than holding it down. They looked at one another still, Draco with the narrowed eyes of rage and Harry with the softened expression of capitulation.

“That… yeah. Yes.” Harry clenched the hand that Draco pinned to the table into a fist. Its muscles tensed against the pressure of Draco’s hand. “How long have you known?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… I wouldn’t have said it the way you did. But I’ve felt this… need for a long time. I think it started after the war, when there was nothing to keep me occupied, distracted. And it has always been about people who kind of just looked like you. If I could find them. And I did not want to see it, but it was pretty obvious. All the other stuff was, too, but that is not so uncommon. And it was more than just having a type, and I knew that, and I think a few other people might have noticed, too.”

Harry had to fight hard against the reflex of averting his gaze. It was out, and he felt relieved, the more so the longer he forced himself to look at Draco and did not find a single sign of rejection in his face. He remembered Draco’s letters and their unexpected neediness. He remembered that he was not the only one at the table who had come because an unfulfilled desire consumed him from the inside.

“So, how long have you known that it needs to be me?”, Harry asked.

“Since that bullshit article in the Prophet about a love-defeated Wunderkind.”

“That’s when you sent the first owl.”

“Yes.” Harry let the silence tell Draco to go on. “It seemed like a good solution, oddly. There was no way we would ever develop something like that romantic titter tatter that had been driving me crazy. And the article made you sound appropriately… promiscuous. The photograph did not make you look bad either. I had nothing to lose, in any case.” Draco let out a cynic laugh. “Really, I don’t have anything to lose, now.”

“That’s all?”, Harry probed. None of Draco’s statements surprised him. But they did not quite explain why he had obviously spent two months just as miserable as Harry.

“Oh, and then you dragged me into a gay club to show me just about everything I never really had and reminded me why the hell I had wanted to stay away from all this sense-confusing, lust-infusing territory. Including your provocative, sassy dominate-me-if-you-can-attitude that drove me crazy for about an hour.”, Draco snapped. He was bitter and confused about how powerfully the memory had come to live within seconds.

“You think that was only one hour?”, Harry asked with regained self-assurance.

“Or two! Hell, this is what I am talking about.” Draco clenched his fingers tighter around Harry’s arm. “Now I just want to give you a slap across the face to shut your outrageous mouth. And I would enjoy that so much not just because I’m angry at you but because I know that you have asked for it and that you will be grateful for it.”

Harry leaned forward as much as his seat allowed him to. “I hate to say it – but you are so, so right. And that is the reason why we are both here, no?”

“Yes.” Draco bit his tongue to remain calm. “And no. There is one more thing related to it. And that is how the last time ended.”

A chill went through the heated atmosphere. Their eye contact broke as Harry cast down his gaze. Draco was astonished to see shame in his expression. Harry inhaled deeply before he spoke.

“It won’t happen again.”, he stated. “There was a boundary and you have not seen it. Now you know where it is and I would expect that you are able and willing to respect it.”

“I will respect boundaries if I see them.”, Draco confirmed. “But you need to point them out to me.”

“I know.”, Harry sighed. “I will.”

“Then it won’t happen again. Strangely enough, part of my fun is that you get something out of this.” The latter sentence had taken Draco as much courage to admit to himself as it had to say it out loud.

Harry allowed himself the tiniest grin. “Oh, I will.”

“But you are going to beg for it, Potter.”, Draco said. There was still a chill in the air, but it fainted with every passing second. “That is no small part of the fun.”

“Only if you can control yourself longer than I can.” Harry’s grin widened. Whether he begged or Draco’s defenses fell, he won either way.

“We’ll see about that.”, Draco answered.

A second later, their table was abandoned.

 

The scent of Draco’s bedroom was strikingly familiar to Harry. The memories it evoked came with intense, mixed emotions. Fear and anticipation spurred an arousal that could not locate its source. This night, the moon towered bright and clear above the clouds. Its light cast blue shadows on the rugs. Draco felt an itch on his skin like the crackle of electric charge when Harry looked up at him in expectation.

“That was a very rushed departure for someone who is all in control.”, he remarked, smiling.

“Are you trying to provoke me again?”, Draco hissed. The way he tensed his shoulders, straightening his posture, was proof that Harry’s comment had that effect, whether intended or not.

“What if?”

Draco chose to answer with actions. His right hand clasped around Harry’s throat, thumb and fingers pressing decidedly against the pulsing veins. His left got hold of Harry’s hip and forced him to stand still. Draco’s face moved closer to Harry’s with lavish patience, taking note of every little twitch and wiggle below his hands. Harry did not try to break free but he certainly probed how far Draco would let him go. Draco spoke only when his mouth was close enough to Harry’s jaw to feel the stubbles of his scruff.

“If you try to provoke me,” Draco forced his fingers deeper into Harry’s skin. “I will teach you not to.”

“How?”, Harry asked and a shiver of anticipation went down his spine.

Draco slid his hand in Harry’s back pocket. He felt the muscle tense, and the heat of Harry’s body like a promise of the pleasures to come. He swallowed while a vision of that very same ass in his hands, naked and exposed, flashed in front of his inner eye. He wiped the image aside, pulled Harry’s wand from the pocket, and flung it to the other side of the room. It fell silently onto the rug. Harry’s glasses followed in the same soundless manner.

The slap that hit Harry’s face next echoed loud and clearly through the room. He gasped as he turned his head back to look at Draco. The blue eyes glistened with a mixture of arousal and raw aggression. Harry’s lips felt dry. He licked them, sucked in his lower lip, and all the while imagined it was not his but Draco’s tongue on his mouth. But when he leaned up and towards the man who just hin him, his head was yanked back by a forceful pull at his hair.

“Sass and talking back won’t get you there.”, Draco declared with audible amusement. His fingers could not resist running across Harry’s chest. It rose and fell with laboriously controlled breaths. Draco let his fingers rest a moment at the hem of Harry’s shirt, toying with the boundary between plain cloth and tempting skin. When he looked at Harry’s face, he met eyes that grew wide with anticipation and dark with desire. Draco was tempted to let him wait even longer, demonstrate his power, let Harry suffer a while under unmet expectations. But in the end, Draco’s own curiosity and need for touch was too strong. His fingers traveled upwards underneath the fabric of Harry’s shirt on roughened, scar-embellished skin. He felt a line of black hair thin and soften as his fingers slid up across the navel towards the middle of the chest.

“Take it off.”, Draco demanded and freed Harry from his firm grip. He stood back to watch the other reveal his naked torso, the wiry, sun-tanned flesh, adorned with black hair that drew a seductive T from nipples to crotch.

“All of it.”, he continued, paralyzed by fascination, feasting on the sight that was his to behold alone.

Harry’s movements were deliberate, self-conscious, agonizingly slow. He did not move from the spot Draco left him as he parted with belt, pants, socks, and finally underwear. His fingers trembled when he removed that last bit of fabric, and only a small part of this tremor was embarrassment. The remainder was the shaky pulse of arousal that rushed through his body, driving hot blood into his cheeks and cock.

“That is more like it.”, Draco commented and stepped closer.

When Harry’s fingers reached for him, he slapped them down. His tongue clicked in disapproval. As much as he liked the feel of the other’s hands traveling across his body, he was not yet willing to grant such privileges. Not without hearing a plea for them. Draco struggled to keep his breathing under control. His fingers itched with the desire to claim every square inch of the exposed body, touch it, scratch it, grab it, watch it tremble and collapse in pleasure.

“Ah-ah.” Draco caught Harry’s hands at the collar of his shirt. “No touching without asking.”

Harry swallowed. His mind was obsessed with the idea to explore the bit of soft, pale skin that lay exposed, how it would feel, how it would taste, what lay beyond the small triangle, what lay underneath Draco’s shirt and pants. But the polite question that Draco asked for was stuck in his throat, unwilling to come out, held back by his last morsel of pride. Instead of making the plea that was demanded, he tried to reach his goal by shifting his entire body against Draco’s, skin against cotton, unsatisfactory, frustrating, and yet better than nothing, better than giving in just yet.

Draco let Harry have his way for a moment, let himself enjoy the other’s needy body press against his. Harry’s lips at his neck, one stroke sending waves of excitement across his back. The desire to lean into a kiss welled up with force. But Draco wanted control more than immediate satisfaction. He wanted to take these lips, possess that body, accept them only in complete surrender.

He turned Harry around, locked his arms behind his back with one hand. Harry’s ass pushed against him with an uncanny intensity that made Draco’s cock press hard against the cage his pants had become. Harry gasped as he found himself leaning against Draco’s body, his hands useless prisoners between Draco’s grip and the firm background of his stomach.

With his free hand, Draco slowly shoved the outgrown hair in Harry’s neck to the side. He brought his lips close the the sensitive skin behind the ear as he spoke: “You are going to ask very nicely for the things you want, understood?”

Harry felt his head move up and down in a nodding motion while Draco’s lips brushed against his ear. Draco’s hand traveled down his side, rested on his hip bone for a sweet second, did move into the very right direction, but stopped just before it touched the base of his cock. It twitched in anticipation. Harry bit his lip, suppressed the moan. He was not yet willing to give Draco the gratification of it.

“And if you don’t ask,”, Draco continued, and his hand traveled away from Harry’s erection towards his chest.

“You will just get what _I_ want.” His thumb and index finger closed gingerly around an erect nipple.

“And maybe you will like it.” Draco increased the pressure between his fingers. Harry winced.

“And maybe you won’t.” A sharp twist of Draco’s fingers made Harry cry out. The pain was instant, and left him gasping for air. The aftermath of it was a sweet tingle of violent sensitivity that rendered the contact between Draco’s fingertips and his body almost unbearably intense.

Draco repeated the game of sliding his hand down on Harry’s torso, soaking in every quiver, every twitch, every goosebump along the way. When his nails began to scratch the beginning of curly hair along Harry’s middle, faint vocalizations escaped Harry’s mouth. Barely more than a series of sighs at first, accumulating into shattered syllables.

“I… you…”

“Yes?”, Draco nudged, and his hand sneaked one inch further down.

Harry was hot and he shivered. The hands behind his back tried to claw into Draco’s shirt, searching for stability as he lost balance, lost control. He could not move but for arching his back, but he was caught in a bitter-sweet dilemma. He wanted to be close to Draco’s body, wanted to feel his hard erection pressing against his butt. He leaned into the man behind him. But he also wanted Draco’s hand against his cock, now, harder, closer. He bent into the other direction, reaching for a touch that was denied to him.

“I could give you what you want.”, Draco mused.

His fingers circled what he knew to be the sole center of Harry’s attention. The erratic twitches against his own aching crotch dizzied him. He looked down at Harry’s erection, found it red and hard and yearning to be touched. Sweat trickled down Draco’s left temple. His own clothes now seemed like a nuisance, but the superiority they represented, the obvious ruling over the naked body that ground against him, were more than sufficient compensation.

“Or I could take what I want,” Draco let go of Harry’s arms, knowing that the other would not dare to move anywhere, captured by his own desires. His hands found a new place on each side of Harry’s ass, opening space between the two firm cheeks, enough to let his thumb slide in between easily.

Harry let out a deep groan. Something inside him tensed but he shushed the resistance with a decided push against Draco’s hands. His muscles contracted reflexively when he felt Draco probing further. But before that hunch of discomfort could expand, the touch behind his back turned in something akin to caress. Draco’s fingers magically warmed and slickened. And so Harry let go and eased into the invasion, embracing the collision of pain and pleasure, of panic and prurience.

“Tell me.”, Draco whispered. His voice was hoarse. “Ask me.”

Harry gasped for the air he needed to speak. The friction of Draco’s fingers inside him maddened his mind, erased any thought but one. “Fuck.”

“Yes?”, Draco asked and he pressed himself against Harry’s body, only half intentionally pushing him against the edge of his bed. He yearned to feel the hot tightness around his fingers on his cock. But his hunger for Harry’s plea was greater, his thirst for control stronger.

“Fuck me.”, Harry exhaled. He grabbed hold of the sheets beneath him, his thighs pressed painfully against the wood of the bed frame, his erection rubbed against the mattress in an agonizing, uncontrollable rhythm.

“That was not very polite.”, Draco responded with as much calm as he could muster, and withdrew his fingers. The whimper that followed created an aching contraction in his stomach. He wanted that man, now, wanted his surrender. “Say please.”

Harry fought hard for control over his mouth and tongue. His body had capitulated a long time ago. With Draco’s retreat, with the sound of his zipper opening, Harry’s mind succumbed, too.

“Fuck me, please.”

Draco chuckled quietly, relishing the sight of the bent-over, quivering Harry for another moment. And then he did fuck him, slowly, easing into the victory and the sweet, pulsing heat of another body. He pushed forward without hesitation, with measure, with control. He hed Harry’s hips down as he struggled with his own instinct to let everything go and thrust into the delicious heat without restraint. But he held back, moving in a deliberate rhythm that sent wave after wave of pleasure crushing through his veins.

“Please.” Harry begged. He begged with desperation and relief.

Draco groaned as Harry arched his back, forcing him deeper inside. He withdrew, waited.

“God please, fuck me. Please.”

The urgency in Harry’s voice drove Draco mad. It spurred his arousal like no hands, no lips, no lover had. Lust took over, desire, greed. Draco savored every single one of Harry’s moans, answered them with his body. With every please, Draco gave more, dared more, thrust deeper and faster, until they settled into an all-encompassing rhythm of sighs and moans, sweat and shivers.

 

After the heat had passed and their bodies had ceased to ring, they lay on either side of the bed with tingling limbs and clouded minds. Silence filled the gap between them, not as a wall but as a gently arching bridge that did not demand anyone to cross over.

It was Harry who sat up first and pulled a shirt over his head. The cotton felt rough on his body, it resisted to be pulled over skin that was still damp and warm.

“You know I’m not a giver, right?”, Draco asked when Harry already stood by the door fully dressed and ready to leave.

“And I’m not a taker.”, he replied. “I don’t want you to just give it to me.”

“I would never dream of doing that.” Draco grinned.

“So, this should work out just fine.”

“It probably won’t.”

“You really think you know everything, don’t you?”, Harry grinned back. “Why shouldn’t it?”

“Oh, just because we kind of hated each other and we still do. So, it doesn’t quite sound like a love story with a happy end.”

“And this is exactly why this is going to work out just fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this little piece of insanity. If so, and even more so if not, leave me a comment, so I can make the next one better. 
> 
> The outlines for the next few chapters are done. But that does not mean they are set in stone.  
> Expect at least one update per week.
> 
> And since I cannot stop listening to K.Flay… maybe another one of her’s as inspiration. I’m thinking of “Blood in the Cut”… Give me a shout if you want that to happen ;)


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